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GoD'S Method with MaN: 



OR 



SACRED SCENES ALONG THE PATH TO 
HEAVEN. 



BY 



REV. B. WEED GORHAM, 

OF THE NORTH-WEFT JOWA CONFERENCE. 



•■^RrSENTED BY 



r; 



r(;i' sod iUi\S. ISiwiu a. iiin, 



ULuii aos 




WASHINGTON. D. C. 

-it I- 



CINCINNATI: 
HITCHCOCK AND WALDEN, 

FOR THE AUTHOR. 
1879. 






Copyright by 
B. ^A^EED GORHAM, 

1879. 



Jadgv3 ^n^ Mrs. \ R, H|tt 
June 23 1936 



^ PREFACE 



T N evangelistic labor, to which the author 
-*- has devoted most of the last twenty years, 
it has been his practice to give a lecture each 
afternoon on some phase of the religious char- 
acter and life. In the course of years these 
lectures came to cover a very considerable 
area of the truth involved in Christian expe- 
rience. Many who had been specially prof- 
ited by them desired to see them, or the 
substance of them, in print, that they might 
be able to turn to them upon occasion. The 
book herewith submitted is a result of convic- 
tions awakened in the mind of the author, not 
only by the oft-repeated expression of this 
desire on the part of his friends, but by what 
seemed to be the guiding light of the Holy 

Spirit. 

B. W. G. 

EvANSTON, III., August, 1879. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE. 

INTRODUCTION, 7 

Chapter. 

I. Man Primeval, ii 

II. Man Fallen, 20 

III. Sin, 32 

IV. The Dawn of Hope, 38 

V. Substitution, 44 

VI. Initial Salvation, , 56 

VII. Conviction for Sin, 65 

VIII. Repentance, 69 

IX. Faith, 85 

X. Justification, 94 

XI. Regeneration, 99 

XII. Adoption, 112 

XIII. Christian Progress, 116 

XIV. Entire Sanctification : What It is, . . 136 
XV. Entire Sanctification : What It is not, 149 

XVI. Why do I need Entire Sanctification? 171 
XVII. How shall I obtain Entire Sanctifi- 
cation, 187 

5 



6 Contents. 

Chapter. page 

XVIII. How S-HALL I RETAIN ENTIRE SANCTIFI- 

CATION, 203 

XIX. Militant Spirit of the Gospel, . . . . 218 

XX. Frequent Baptisms of the Holy Ghost, 227 

XXI. A Dream, 244 

XXII. Refining Fire, 248 

XXIII. The Human Soul — Its Value and Its 

Perils — A Sermon, 253 

A Parting Word, 279 



INTRODUCTION, 



EVERY man has his favorite studies and 
lines of thought. If, therefore, a book 
be written, it is likely to be on what the au- 
thor has thought most and farthest. Doubt- 
less this IS not only most probable, but also 
most profitable for the world ; because it gives 
readers the best results possible to authors, 
each writing on his favorite topic. During 
my whole Christian life, and especially my 
ministerial life, I have regarded the phenom- 
ena connected with Christian experience as 
the phenomena of a science worthy the study 
of man or angel. I believe fully that these 
phenomena ought to be carefully noted, sys- 
tematized and written out, and that treatises 
upon the subject should be among the text- 
books in our theological schools, just as works 
on the signs of health and symptoms of 
disease are text-books for medical students. 

Studies preparatory to the cure of the soul 

7 



8 Introduction. 

constitute the only line of scientific reading 
and training in which the theory is pursued 
without constant reference to the fact. Hence 
it is probably true that in no other depart- 
ment of professional labor does the young 
practitioner come to his work with so vague 
an understanding of the facts with which, in 
his practice, he will have to deal, as does the 
young minister of the Gospel. 

For many years I waited, in hope that 
something would appear in Christian litera- 
ture which should meet the want above hinted 
at. But I have been able to find nothing at all 
satisfying to my own mind, or that seemed 
even to be aimed at supplying this particu- 
lar need. Accordingly, several years ago, I 
began to prepare the matter of this book. 
Personal illness and long-continued domestic 
embarrassments have compelled the delay. 
This tardiness in the accomplishment of my 
work has, however, given time for the ripen- 
ing of thought; so that I trust, now that the 
book comes forth, it may be the more satis- 
factory to my friends for the years of their 
waiting. I shall be compensated for my toil, 
and grateful to God that I ever engaged in 



Intr od uction. 



/ 



it, if I shall come to know that professional 
religious laborers and private Christians, to 
both of whom I have sought to adapt the 
work, have been helped in their lives and la- 
bors by its pages. 

After all, I am painfully conscious that I 
have but very imperfectly performed my task ; 
yet I trust that my writing may at least draw 
abler men to the topic, and so secure the bet- 
ter supply of a great want of the militant 
Church. 



GoD's Method with Man. 



Chapter I. 

MAN PRIMEVAL. 

MKW is probably the highest title 
borne by a creature. A solemn pause 
in the Creator's work preceded his formation; 
and the Trinity in council brought him forth, 
creation's masterpiece, to be its possessor and 
king. He was at once, upon his creation, for- 
mally invested with the prerogatives of em- 
pire. In his first utterance to the being he 
had formed in his own image and after his 
own Hkeness, and inspired with the breath of 
his own nature, God said, ''Have dominion." 
The communication between the Creator and 
the new creature Avas from the first, not by 
messages sent and received, but was of the na- 
ture of personal intercourse and communion. 
Man appears to have been called into exist- 
ence to supply the place of spirits lost and 

II 



12 GoD's Method with Man. 

fallen through sin. And who were these? 
Their leader had his original name, Lucifer, 
** son of the morning, '' a poetic title bestowed 
by God, declarative of his love, and suggest- 
ive of the dignity, glory, and beneficence of 
the character of him who was accounted wor- 
thy to receive it. Lucifer that was, is Satan 
now ; that old serpent, the great dragon, the 
devil, Apollyon, Beelzebub, Prince of the 
power of the air. Ruler of the darkness of 
this world. He wrought death and ruin in 
Job's household. He fought Michael on 
Nebo. He attacked and wounded the Son of 
God. He murders nations by the power of 
sin. He holds a deluded world with an infer- 
nal grasp. Such is the greatness of Satan, 
even in his ruin. It is not probable that God 
created a being of minor capacity and dignity 
to fill the place vacated by Satan and his 
rebellious associates ; nor is it probable that a 
later creation is of less dignity and power than 
an earlier: God proceeds from less to greater 
always. 

That God's design in forming this new 
creature carried him beyond the notion of a 
simple spirit-life to the expedient of a com- 



Man Primeval, 13 

pound being having two lives, argues the 
magnificent proportions of his intent. Won- 
der and awe struck the universe when God 
produced a being two in one; a spiritual na- 
ture domiciled within a physical, at once its 
house, its organ, its vehicle, its exponent, 
and its medium of reproduction. 

By divine appointment, angels are servants 
to men. Bible story is all alive with these 
thronging messengers and ministers to the 
heirs of salvation. They are heaven's carrier- 
doves of more than lightning wing. They 
obey God. They serve man. They counter- 
work Satan. They are attendants even upon 
little children. They bear the spirits of the 
just to heaven. Either, therefore, the greater 
serve the less, or the angelic is inferior to the 
human. But in God's order the greater do 
not serve the less. Besides, there was once 
an occasion of greater moment, doubtless, 
than any other in the history of man. It was 
when a message was to be conveyed to Jesus, 
touching his death which he should accom- 
plish at Jerusalem. God sent, on that occa- 
sion, not angels, but two human beings, 
Moses and Elijah. 



14 GoD's Method with Man, 

On the passage, '* Tkou madest him a little 
lower than the angels,'' Dr. Adam Clarke says: 
**If this be spoken of man as he came out of 
the hands of his Maker, it places him at the 
head of all God's works ; for, literally trans- 
lated, it is, ^Thou hast made him less than 
God;' and this is proved by his being made 
in the image and likeness of God, which is 
spoken of no other creature either in heaven 
or earth ; and it is very likely that in his origi- 
nal creation he stood at the head of all the 
works of God, and the next to his Maker. 
This sentiment is well expressed in the follow- 
ing lines, part of a paraphrase on the Eighth 
Psalm, by the Rev. Charles Wesley : 

* Him with glorious majesty 

Thy grace vouchsafed to crown : 
Transcript of the One in Three, 

He in thine image shone. 
Foremost of created things, 

Head of all thy works he stood ; 
Nearest the great King of kings, 

And little less than God.' " 

All the strange yearnings of the human 
soul for the boundless and the infinite are but 
the revelation of the amazing breadth and 



Man Primeval. 15 

scope of its powers — powers that find no ade- 
quate field here, capacities for which the earth 
is not enough. So great a being did God 
produce when he made man, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life — of lives. 

Man is a creature made in the image of 
God, intellectually, judicially, and morally — in 
knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. He 
has lost his holiness, but the other features 
of the image remain, only as they are dam- 
aged incidentally by the loss of holiness, and 
the inrushing of sin and pollution. Through 
all the Bible, God habitually confesses that 
perception, reason, judgment, taste, and the 
moral sense are in man what they are in him- 
self: in other words, that man is finitely what 
God is infinitely. The divine and the human 
natures are homogeneous. It is not possible 
to conjoin two heterogeneous natures in one 
personality without producing a being fitly 
termed monster. The very thought of a being 
compounded of man and horse is too shock- 
ing to be entertained. But Jesus Christ, the 
God-man, sums in himself all possible meas- 
ures of excellence and beauty, and is *' chief 
among ten thousand, altogether lovely." In 



1 6 GoD's Method with Man. 

further illustration of the homogeneousness 
of the human and the divine natures, it seems 
proper to note that there is a sense, though 
certainly a very subordinate sense, in which 
every instance of personal salvation is an in- 
stance of the union of the divine with the 
human. **I will dwell in them and walk in 
them." '^Christ in you the hope of glory.'' 
*'I in them, and they in me.'' ** Jesus Christ 
is in you, except ye be reprobates." ** Partak- 
ers of his holiness." ** Partakers of the divine 
nature." 

The union of the divine with the human 
has always been a characteristic feature of 
God's method. Had sin never entered, God 
would undoubtedly, after a suitable proba- 
tion, have taken every man to himself, with- 
out death. 

The Scriptures affirm that ^ ^ by one man sin 
entered into the world, and death by sin." 
It has often been asked. If Adam had never 
sinned, and death had never come, what would 
have become of the ever-increasing numbers 
of the human race by this time ? This ques- 
tion may well be regarded as a formidable 
one, since it is known that notwithstanding 



Man Prime val, i 7 

the exceeding brevity of human life, more 
human beings have lived here than could now 
possibly find standing room on the surface of 
the globe. It must be obvious, therefore, that 
some method of removal must have been in 
the mind of God when he made man upon 
the earth. It seems to me that in the course 
of events God has himself sufficiently an- 
swered the question. He has taken three 
persons, body and soul, from earth to heaven : 
namely, Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus. Who can 
doubt that in some similar manner God would 
have taken every man to himself, upon the 
attainment of a given measure of knowledge 
and character? This earth is the preparatory 
school for heaven now. I believe God has 
always intended it as such. And I do not 
believe he ever intended it as the permanent 
abode of man. There is not an intim^ation 
that he did so intend in the whole Bible ; and 
every passage that seems to relate to the real 
goal of the human being implies that it is 
heaven, and not earth. 

We have now, as a race of redeemed sinr 
ners, in every house occasionally the heart- 
breaking scenes of death-beds and funerals. 

2 



1 8 GoD's Method with Man, 

Grace sometimes does much to lighten and 
fill with hope these sad passages of domestic 
history; and art and taste do their best to 
make us forget the shocking loathsomeness 
of the grave. But, do the best we can, the 
appalling facts of mortality smite us and haunt 
us through life. If sin had never come, how 
had we been spared all this sad train of over- 
whelming calamities. What beautiful scenes, 
half heaven half earth, had been of daily oc- 
currence! Think of father and mother, ripe 
for heaven, calling their children and child- 
ren's children home, as to a most joyous 
though solemn entertainment. They have 
been notified that the chariot will be in wait- 
ing on such a day. The great group gathers. 
Every one is in perfect health. Every one 
is spotless in character. Every one is filled 
with love to God, to father and mother, and 
to every other one. 

What a scene is here, as such a house- 
hold meets and greets, each the others. And 
as the hour draws nigh, what tender, loving, 
holy adieus are given to the departing ones ! 
What messages are sent to them that are gone 
before ! And what rapture must thrill each 



Man Primeval. 19 

member of the family group, as father and 
mother depart in their sight, and are borne 
away over the everlasting hills ! 

Now if we consider scenes somewhat analo- 
gous to this, multiplied over the earth by the 
number of families upon it, we shall get an 
idea of what domestic life, in one of its as- 
pects, would have been had sin never entered 
the world. 



20 Gods Method with Man. 



Chapter II. 

MAN FALLEN. 

BUT this beautiful portrait of what was and 
what was to be was soon marred ; and the 
first chapter of man's story is a recital of most 
terrible disaster. Lucifer had become Satan 
before man was made. From the date of his 
expulsion from heaven, a prisoner somewhat 
at large, he determined to counterwork the 
Almighty. To this end he sought, with 
infernal ingenuity, to compass, if possible, the 
ruin of God's youngest-born. His plot suc- 
ceeded, and the ruler of earth and favorite of 
heaven lost his innocence, his crown, his joy, 
his rest, his God. His nature became cor- 
rupt; he was doomed to death; the earth 
was cursed on his account, and he Avas driven 
forth from Eden under the divine condemna- 
tion. Corrupt himself, his progeny was cor- 
rupt after him. Of this the character of his 
first-born gave terrible proof in the murder of 
his brother. 



Man Fallen. 2 \ 

What, then, is the precise condition of man 
since the fall, with respect to his spiritual 
state and his relation to God? It is worthy 
of note that, to express the condition of man 
as affected by sin, the Scriptures use extreme 
terms. *' Every imagination of the thought 
of his heart is only evil continually.'' ''They 
are all gone out of the way, there is none 
that doeth good, they are altogether become 
filthy." Where metaphors are employed, 
these also are extreme. Is man a traveler? 
He is ''lost." Is he a patient? "There is 
no soundness, but wounds and bruises and 
putrefying sores." Is the question of wealth? 
He is poor to nakedness. Of joy? He is 
miserable and wretched. Of hope? He has 
neither a hope nor a God. Of purity? His 
heart is a very fountain of unclean thoughts 
and deeds. Or if the question be of life, he 
is dead — dead to God, dead in sin, dead by 
the penalty of sin, dead by the virus of sin. 

How terrible is this, that such a life is gone 
out, and that death is come! For when death 
comes a horror supervenes, measured exactly 
by the type of the life that is gone out. A 
dead tree isn't much; it might provoke a sigh 



22 GoD's Method with Man, 

if it had been a pet of your yard or garden; 
but there is no horror; for only the lowest life 
is gone out. To come upon a dead brute 
startles and distresses you. To stumble in 
the dark on a human corpse would freeze you 
with fright and nervous agony that might un- 
settle your reason or end your life. But man 
is dead in sin; his death has come of his 
conduct. Put this how you will, there is no 
relief. Say he is dead as the penalty of sin ; 
then he is a dead criminal. And how great 
is the horror that gathers about the corpse^ 
and even the grave, of the man who is known 
to have been put to death for his crime? Or 
say man is dead by the virus of sin ; sin has 
poisoned him to death. What horror there 
is in the words, *'Dead of the cholera!'* 
**dead of the small-pox!'' ''dead of the yel- 
low fever!" ''dead of the plague!" *'dead of 
the Black Death!" — Dead! And in an hour 
the noble form which stood for so much of 
strength to provide and shelter and save is 
changed to a mass of poison! Make haste! 
Roll it in a tarred sheet! Back up the dead- 
cart ! Have it forth ! Bury it deep ! So ter- 
rible is the Bible picture of man dead in sin. 



Man Fallen. 2 3 

The facts of human history in ancient and 
modern times alike indorse the accuracy of 
the Bible view. The vile practices of heathen 
lands are such that no traveler thinks of por- 
traying them; nor would their publication be 
allowed in any country really Christian. So 
utterly lost does human nature every-where 
proclaim itself to be, except where it meets 
a counterworking force in the Gospel. 

Is there then no view of human nature that 
should be set over against this dark picture to 
qualify its terrible implications? Undoubt- 
edly there is. Human beings may be viewed 
in a light in which they appear to better ad- 
vantage. There are developed in countries 
enlightened by the Bible many characters 
who, though destitute of converting grace, 
may be pronounced upright and worthy. And 
there have appeared in heathen lands several 
persons of real excellence of character. Cicero, 
Seneca, Phocion, Regulus, Cyrus, Scipio, the 
two friends, Damon and Pythias, and Aris- 
tides, may be named as examples. Great 
numbers of persons are found in all Christian 
countries who, though unconverted, deserve 
and receive the respect of their fellows for 



24 Govs Method with Man. 

their social qualities. They are honest in 
deal, true to their promises, temperate livers, 
kind husbands, true, amiable wives, dutiful 
children, faithful friends, Vv'ise statesmen, good 
legislators, noble patriots, incorruptible judges. 
Now, how can such exhibitions of character 
be accounted for on the theory of the terrible 
degradation of human nature before insisted 
on? The whole discussion would fill a vol- 
ume, perhaps, but there is room here for a 
few points. 

1. In all Christian countries there is devel- 
oped, in connection with Bible teaching and 
Christian usage, a force that powerfully coun- 
terworks sin in ^he human heart. The work- 
ings of the Holy Ghost on the hearts of men, 
the teachings of the Bible, the pulpit, the 
family, the Sunday-school, and the religious 
press, together with the godly lives of many 
Christians and the standard of morals in com- 
munity, resulting from all these, constitute a 
light in the daze of which men blush to look 
at forms of sin over which they would gloat 
in the twilight. 

2. There is a conservative force in the gen- 
eral feeling of hopefulness that every one has 



Man Fallen, 2 15 

in a Christian land. Men commonly believe, 
bad as they are, that it is possible they may 
yet be saved. Convince a man that there is 
no hope, and the chances are that he will de- 
velop at once into a brute, a Stoic, or a fiend. 

3. Wherever there is a Christian standard 
of morals, virtue pays better than vice, and 
character has a cash value. Far-seeing selfish- 
ness will therefore dictate temperance, truth- 
fulness, religious reverence. Sabbath-keeping, 
chastity, commercial honor, etc., where there 
is really no wholesome horror of the opposite 
vices. 

4. Man, dead in sin, is peculiarly dead to 
God; not equally dead to man. The faculties 
of his soul which involve the domestic and so- 
cial relations appear not to have been affected 
by the fall, so that he necessarily exhibits his 
depravity equally manward and Godward. He 
is often wholly true to man who is wholly 
untrue to God. It is probably never true, 
however, of an unconverted person that he 
does right, even to man, simply because it is 
right. 

To set this matter clearly before the mind, 
let us analyze character a little. Take, for 



26 GoD's Method with Man. 

instance, this cautious man, this man who is 
always intent upon safeguards. He attends 
Church and is as orthodox as the parson. He 
receives the Scriptures without cavil, and be- 
lieves in God and the Bible and ministers and 
Churches and heaven and hell, like the rest of 
us; but he is unconverted. Take this most 
cautious man who is afraid of fires, afraid of 
robbers, afraid of coughs and colds, afraid of 
new schemes of speculation, afraid of long 
credits and poor paymasters, afraid of risks of 
any kind and anywhere ; and go tell him there 
is a terrible danger hanging over him. He 
will hear you with interest, and even with 
great excitement, so long as he thinks you 
are talking of house or barn or stocks or 
goods or mortgages or notes or debts. But 
the moment he comes to see that you talk of 
his soul and the fathomless deeps of despair 
forever, he will exhibit a sense of complete 
relief, and possibly turn away with a smile, 
saying: *'0h, yes, the parson talks of these 
things to us every Sunday.'' Whence is this? 
It is because caution, in its spiritual ofiGces, is 
dead in the man. He is dead to God, dead to 
the things of the Spirit, and dead to eternity. 



Man Fallen. 27 

Here is a mother. She has three or four 
daughters grown and growing up. She and 
her family are Church-goers. She is orthodox 
in her opinions, but she is an unsaved woman. 
She has large love of offspring. She lives for 
her girls, their health, their education, their 
dress, their accomplishments, their social posi- 
tion, their settlement in life; these are the 
topics of her thought and study. One of 
these girls has been traveling with you and 
your wife in Europe for two years, and has 
exhibited a marked seriousness, has become 
pronounced in her determination to devote 
her life to Christ. On your return you inform 
this tender mother of the wonderful prospects 
that have opened before her daughter during 
her absence. You talk of high society and 
noble relationships, and hint of crow^ns and 
empire. You soon find that your words have 
moved your auditor exceedingly. She tries 
to appear calm, but is really half wild with 
excitement. Presently you drop all figure 
and come down to sober fact. You tell her 
of her daughter's growing seriousness during 
the journey, of her penitence and prayers, and 
the consecration of her young life to the serv- 



28 Gons Method with Man. 

ice of the King of kings, and how she had 
thus become an heir of God and a joint-heir 
with Christ to an inheritance incorruptible, 
undefiled, and that fadeth not away. It will 
be wonderful if this mother do not turn away 
from you with ill-concealed disgust, solilo- 
quizing, ''Oh, I thought he was going to say 
something." What is this but that, in the 
estimate of this woman, earth outweighs 
heaven, and time is more than eternity? 
What is it, indeed, but that in regard to 
things spiritual and eternal she is a dead 
woman? 

A poor man gets into trouble for want of 
a small amount of ready funds. He has been 
unfortunate, and must secure this amount or 
go speedily to financial ruin. He comes to 
you in his distress for counsel and advice. 
He approaches you timidly, but you assure 
him with kind words, invite him to your 
table, talk with him of his case, head a sub- 
scription for him with ten dollars, and send 
him forth among your neighbors with your 
blessing, to see what he can raise. He obtains 
the needed funds. That morning's interview 
has bound that poor man to you for life; he 



Man Fallen. 29 

will cherish it and you among his choicest 
memories, and when forty years are gone he 
will rehearse to his grandchildren with mois- 
tened eyes his deliverance and your kindness. 
Such is gratitude of man to man. But what 
of gratitude of man to God? Innumerable 
blessings of priceless value have fallen all these 
forty years on the head and house of that 
same man from God. Yet all this wealth of 
kindness has never moved his heart or bent 
his knee, or moistened his eye, or evoked a 
single word of thanks from his tongue. What- 
ever the man is to you, he is dead to God. 

The truth is, a man commonly judges an- 
other largely by what that other is to him, 
whatever his life may have been in his inter- 
course with other parties. ''Speak well of 
the bridge that carries you safe over." So 
when Ave form our estimate, of man in general 
we almost instinctively inquire, What is man 
to man? But this is not the question con- 
clusive of character. The question of your 
character as a citizen is, What are you to the 
government? As a child, What are you to 
your parent? As a subject, What are you to 
the king? As a creature, What are you to 



30 GoD's Method with Man. 

God ? This bottom question being answered, 
it is not possible that facts enough can be 
accumulated touching other of your relations 
to turn the scale and reverse the decision. 
What you are to God that you are. If you 
are untrue here, it needs but the readjusting 
of occasions to make you false anywhere else. 
Again, God is the center, the perfection, 
and the source of all purity, truth, excellence, 
and lovableness in the universe. Are you in 
harmony with such a God? or is your mind 
enmity against him? Remember, also, this 
God is he who all your days has been pro- 
jecting your life from hour to hour, giving 
you health, family, food, home, friends, '*all 
things richly to enjoy,*' in fact. If you can 
remain indifferent or inimical to such a God, 
if you can receive the benefactions of a life- 
time with no gratitude, and no desire to know 
your Benefactor, to be led into his presence 
and to tell him of your love, then is it true 
and most evident that your nature is corrupt 
and vile, out of harmony with God, and, 
except through renewing grace, incapable of 
his service in earth or heaven. Nothing re- 
mains to you but that God should hold over 



Man Fallen. 



31 



you with forbearance and long suffering during 
your allotted time, and then, if you repent 
not, hurl you from his presence among the 
offal of the universe — lost angels and lost 
men. 



32 Govs Me tho d with Man, 



Chapter III. 

SIN, 

BUT it is time to inquire what strange 
agency, influence, power, this is that has 
seized upon the fair, innocent, noble creature 
of God, and so deluded, degraded, perverted, 
palsied, polluted, and infernalized him. We 
call it sin; but who can define it so as ade- 
quately to set forth its character and its 
power? Sin is transgression of the law — God's 
law, holy, just, good. It is voluntary trans- 
gression — transgression of a known law. This 
is rebellion. Every man that engages in it 
exalts himself above God, sets himself in 
opposition to him, and shows that he would 
dethrone him if he could. The sin of omis- 
sion, or refusal to obey God, expresses the 
same state of mind and implies equal atro- 
ciousness: the only difference being that the 
transgressor responds to ''thou shalt not," 



S/N. 33 

by ''I will;" while the other replies to *'thou 
shalt," hy ''I will not." 

But sin is deeper than the act, and before 
it. It is the infernalized condition of the 
heart that has a taste for forbidden gratifica- 
tions, that loves to trample on authority, that 
believes stolen waters to be sweet, and that 
is itself the seething caldron whence steam 
forth evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, 
murders, Avith all abominations in their train. 

Sin appears to have originated in a great 
angelic rebellion. The Word says, ''And 
there was war in heaven ; Michael and his 
angels fought against the dragon, and the 
dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed 
not ; neither was their place found any more 
in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, 
that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, 
which deceiveth the whole world ; he was cast 
out into the earth, and his angels were cast out 
with him." Again, ''The angels which kept 
not their first estate, but left their own habi- 
tation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains 
under darkness unto the judgment of the great 
day." Again, "God spared not the angels 
that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and 

3 



34 GoD's Method with Man. 

delivered them into chains of darkness, to be 
reserved unto judgment. '* 

The Bible treats the question of the exist- 
ence of fallen or evil spirits, or devils, as it 
does the question of the existence of God; 
that is, it assumes it, never attempting to prove 
it. The serpent beguiled Eve, and received 
the sentence, ''He shall bruise thy head.'' 
Satan conversed with God, and expressed con- 
tempt for his commendation of Job's com- 
plete integrity; whereupon he Avas allowed 
by God to proceed to great lengths in testing 
the integrity of the patriarch by terrible af- 
flictions; but in vain for the ends he sought. 
Satan attacked the Son of God, as recorded 
in Matt. 4, and sought by repeated efforts — 
all in vain — to seduce him from his integrity. 
Matt. 8, and Mark 5, give the incident of the 
man among the tombs. He was untamable, 
and so fierce as to endanger public travel. 
He was possessed of a legion of devils. These 
knew Jesus at sight, confessed his character 
and power, and deprecated the wrath to come: 
**Art thou come hither to torment us before 
the time?" The account of the casting forth 
of a devil, as given in Mark 9, is in point 



Sm 35 

equally with the cases named above, as show- 
ing the personaUty, the power, and the rage 
of evil spirits. 

Some say they can not believe the doctrine 
that there are fallen angels ; for they can not 
believe that a good being in a good place 
would, or even could, begin to sin. But un- 
less we adopt the old theory that there are 
two eternal beings, the one good and the 
other evil, we must admit that sin had a be- 
ginning; and that very fact implies that all 
beings and all places were, previously to that 
beginning, good. Therefore a being, good 
up to the moment when he began to sin, and 
in a good place, became rebelHous, and so 
fell from his uprightness, his loyalty to God, 
his innocence, and his heaven. The Bible ac- 
count, therefore, as quoted above, is not only 
not incredible, but is so intrinsically probable 
that it must be assumed to be essentially true, 
even if it had not been written in the Book. 

Touching the number of the angels that 
were drawn into the rebellion and so fell and 
became devils, the Scriptures do not speak 
definitely. Allusions in the twelfth chapter 
of Revelation seem to make it probable that 



36 GoD's Method with Man. 

one-third of all the heavenly host fell away. 
That their numbers must be great is presum- 
able from the numerous Bible accounts of 
demoniacal possession — seven in one person, 
a legion in another, etc. So that the nerv- 
ous language of Charles Wesley seems quite 
safely based : 

* 'Angels your march oppose, 

Who still in strength excel : 
Your secret, sworn, eternal foes; 
Countless, invisible ; 

From thrones of glory driven, 

By flaming vengeance hurled, 
They throng the air, they darken heaven, 

They rule this lower world." 

These angels, now corrupted, overthrown, 
and ruined, are alluded to in Scripture as 
representing the hierarchy of heaven, the 
terms used being ''thrones, dominions, prin- 
cipalities, and powers;" and no higher terms 
are employed when the rank of the unfallen 
angels is in question. Much of the power of 
the fallen angels appears to remain, though 
sin has disrobed them of dignity, and they 
are wholly vile and unclean, and whelmed in 
infamy. 



S/N. 37 

So far as we know, no system of recovery- 
has ever been provided for fallen angels : per- 
haps partly because, self-tempted, they went 
into rebellion amidst the light and glory of 
heaven itself; and partly because their sin can 
not entail itself upon others — angels being 
created, not born. 

Sin's Doings. — Sin has cursed the earth 
with barrenness, tainted the air with death, 
degraded man from his kinghood to be the 
slave of his own vile affections, brought the 
sentence of death upon the human family, 
blotted out nations and races of men by the 
curse of God, filled the world in every age 
with the cry of the helpless and the hopeless, 
buried the nations it had murdered in eternal 
infamy, brought fathers and mothers in sor- 
row to the grave before their time, disrupted 
households, bereaved children, broken the 
hearts of wives, multiplied widows without 
number, and transformed the earth from the 
Eden it was to the vale of tears it is. 



38 GoD's Method with Man, 



Chapter IV, 

THE DA WN OF HOPE, 

THE first promise of a Redeemer was 
given immediately upon the fall of man ; 
and it was renewed from time to time Avith 
increasing clearness and particularity of detail 
down to the close of the Old Testament rev- 
elations. These prophecies sketch a dual 
character, such as the world had never known : 
at once highest and lowest, strongest and 
weakest, richest and poorest, most honored 
and most despised; at once a guardian shep- 
herd and a sacrificed lamb, a born infant and 
a reigning king, a bruised culprit and a hero 
exalted to the right hand of God. So minute 
also were the prophecies touching the miracle 
of his human origin, the place of his birth, 
and many facts of his public history, and of 
his death and resurrection, that it is forever 
impossible to find their fulfillment in any 
except Jesus of Nazareth. 

To rescue man from degradation and ruin 



The Da wn of Hope. 39 

(John 3: 16), and bring him to new altitudes 
(Rom. 5: 20, 21), to defeat and overthrow 
Satanic designs (Gen. 3: 15, and Rom. 6: 20, 
and Heb, 2: 14), and to illustrate his govern- 
ment in the eyes of the universe (Eph. 3: 10), 
God instituted redemption for us through the 
death of Jesus Christ. Redemption by the 
blood of Christ is the central fact of God's 
administration in the earth, if not in the uni- 
verse. Here all Bible story culminates, and 
all Bible institutions find at once their justifi- 
cation and their significance. The history of 
the world for four thousand years is the his- 
tory of a system of measures preparatory to 
the advent of Messiah ; and when the fullness 
of the time was come, God sent forth his Son 
to redeem us that we might receive the adop- 
tion of sons. *'He gave himself for us that he 
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify 
unto himself a peculiar people. '* *'He died 
the just for the unjust that he might bring us 
to God." *'He was wounded for our trans- 
gressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; 
the chastisement of our peace was upon him; 
and with his stripes we are healed.'' 

Jesus Christ is Man. — He was born, was a 



40 GoD's Method with Man. 

child, a boy, a young man working at a trade, 
was baptized, fasted, prayed, was tempted as 
we are, traveled, held meetings, was weary 
and rested, was hungry and ate, was thirsty 
and drank, wore clothing made by his friends 
who ministered unto him of their substance, 
and died of grief and wounds. He is man, 
your brother, my brother, else what is his 
death to us? They Avho deny the humanity 
of Jesus Christ sap the foundations of all 
rational faith in him as my Savior, and make 
his whole life of seeming and professed rela- 
tion to our race a pretense and a falsehood. 
Jesus Christ is God. — He was called ''the 
mighty God" seven hundred years before his 
appearance as the babe of Bethlehem; and 
**God over all" after he had wrought his 
mission and ascended to the throne. He 
exercised the prerogatives and claimed the 
honors of divinity always. Indeed, the two 
natures were distinctly exhibited in almost 
every act of his public life. He is a human 
guest at a wedding, and speaks the divine 
Word by which water is wine. He is a mem- 
ber of a group of men coming into Nain; but 
he is God, and gives back alive to his mother 



The Da wn of Hope. 41 

her only son from the bier. He sits a weary 
traveler on Jacob's well, but he teaches truths 
known only to God. He sleeps on a pillow 
in the little craft storm-tossed on Galilee, for 
he is man and needs repose ; but he speaks, 
and the tempest is hushed at his word, for 
his word is the word of God. He stands a 
human mourner at the grave of Lazarus, and 
weeps and groans; but he sends his voice 
ringing into the sepulcher, and he that had 
been dead four days comes forth alive. He 
is bound, mocked, scourged, spit upon ; but 
declares that if he chose to call them, twelve 
legions of angels would appear upon the scene 
for his rescue. He faints and falls beneath 
the weight of the cross on which he is to 
hang ; but at the sound of his death-cry rocks 
rend, earth shakes, and dead men start from 
their graves. 

The death of Jesus Christ is the atoning 
fact of his history. His example is, indeed, a 
perpetual blessing to the world; and as to his 
teaching, ''Never man spake like this man.'' 
But the Scriptures are unequivocal as to the 
quality and office of his death. ''He suffered, 
the just for the unjust." He was the offering 



42 GoD's Method with Man. 

*'once offered/' ^*He appeared;'* that is, he 
came into the world, ' ^ to put away sin by the 
sacrifice of himself." **But he was wounded 
for our transgressions, he was bruised for our 
iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was 
upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." 
''His soul was made an offering for sin." It 
is the blood of Christ, who offered himself 
without spot to God, that has power to purge 
your conscience from dead works to serve the 
living God. **We have redemption through 
his blood." **We are reconciled to God in 
the body of his flesh through death." '*We 
have the forgiveness of sins through his 
blood." ''The blood of Jesus Christ his Son 
cleanseth us from all sin." "Except ye eat 
the flesh of the Son of man and drink his 
blood, ye have no life in you." "Therefore 
doth my Father love me, because I lay down 
my life that I might take it again. No man 
taketh it from me, but I lay it down of 
myself. I have power to lay it down, and I 
have power to take it again." "But we see 
Jesus, who was made a little lower than the 
angels for the suffering of death, crowned 
with glory and honor; that he, by the grace 



The Da wn of Hope, 43 

of God, should taste death for every man.'* 
He took part of flesh and blood, ' ' that 
through death he might destroy him that had 
the power of death, that is the devil/' ^^They 
overcame him by the blood of the Lamb." 
*'Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to 
God by thy blood, out of every kindred and 
tongue and people and nation/' **We are 
redeemed with the precious blood of Christ/' 
Let no man, therefore, deceive you with vain 
words. If there be truth in the Bible, Jesus 
Christ, the God-man, purchased redemption 
for us when '^ he offered up himself,^' 



44 GoD's Method with Man. 



Chapter V. 

SUBSTITUTION, 

BUT some say the theory that the suffer- 
ings of an innocent person can procure 
pardon for the guilty, instead of exhibiting 
divine clemency on any proper footing, in- 
volves two acts of injustice — the release of a 
criminal without punishment, and the inflic- 
tion of penalty upon an innocent party. This 
is a standard objection to the scheme of re- 
demption. It deserves candid consideration, 
and shall have it. Let us get the question fairly 
before us. May there be a scheme of substi- 
tution, providing for the rescue of the guilty 
from punishment through the sufferings of an 
innocent party, so arranged as to maintain the 
authority of government, save subjects from 
innumerable pains and penalties, and exhibit 
the justice and clemency of the government 
in such a light as to give it a new hold upon 



Substitution. 45 

the hearts and confidence of the governed ? 
We think there may be such a scheme ; and 
we invite the reader's attention to the follow- 
mg- points, and claim that wherever the con- 
ditions which they collectively present are 
met, a righteous substitution is provided for. 

CONDITIONS OF RIGHTEOUS SUBSTITUTION. 

1. That the supreme authority consent to 
the substitution. 

2. That the substitute be related to, and a 
representative of, the supreme authority. 

3. That the substitute be related to, and a 
representative of, the criminals. 

4. That the sufferings in behalf of the crim- 
inals be voluntary. 

5. That the substitute be able to endure 
adequate suffering, and survive. 

6. That adequate public notice of the sub- 
stitution be given throughout every part of 
the government. 

7. That the substitution, equally with pen- 
alty, be adapted to impress the governed, and 
so maintain authority. 

8. That no guilty party escape penalty, 
except on repentance, and return to good 



46 GoD's Method with Man. 

citizenship — the sufferings of the substitute 
being merely provisory. 

9. That the party rescued, by substitution, 
from capital punishment owe his allegiance 
thenceforth wholly to the substitute. 

10. That the substitute shall not in the 
end be a loser on account of the sacrifice he 
has made. 

Now the question is, are all these points 
met by the scheme of substitution presented 
in the Bible? Let the reader take them, 
point by point, and carefully note the rele- 
vant Scriptures, as follows: 

1. That the supreme authority consent to 
the substitution. Scripture: Gen. 3:15, ''It 
[the seed of the woman] shall bruise thy 
head" (the serpent's head). Isa. 53: 10, ''It 
pleased the Lord to bruise him." Zech. 13: 7, 
* 'Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and 
against the man that is my fellow, saith the 
Lord of hosts." John 3: 16, ''For God so 
loved the world that he gave his only be- 
gotten son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

2. That the substitute be related to, and 



Substitution, 47 

a representative of, the supreme authority. 
Scripture: Ps. 2: 7, **Iwill declare the decree: 
the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my 
Son; this day have I begotten thee.'' John 
14: 9, '' He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father.'* Verse 20, *'I am in my Father." 
Verse 24, ** And the word which ye hear is 
not mine, but the Father's which sent me." 
Matt. 28: 18, *'A11 power is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth." 

3. That the substitute be related to, and a 
representative of, the criminals. Scripture: 
Luke 19: 10, '*For the Son of man is come 
to seek and to save that which was lost." 
Heb. 2: 16, '*For verily he took not on him 
the nature of angels ; but he took on him the 
seed of Abraham." Verse 11, ^'He is not 
ashamed to call them [namely, human beings] 
brethren." i Tim. 2: 5, ''For there is one 
God, and one mediator between God and 
men, the man Christ Jesus." Heb. 9: 24, 
** Christ is entered into heaven itself, now to 
appear in the presence of God for us." i John 
2 : I, '* We have an advocate with the Father, 
Jesus Christ the righteous." 

4. That the sufferings of the substitute in 



48 GoD's Method with Man. 

behalf of the criminals be voluntary. Scrip- 
ture: John lo: 17-18, ''Therefore doth my 
Father love me, because I lay down my life, 
that I might take it again. No man taketh it 
from me, but I lay it down of myself." Heb. 
2: 9, — ''that he [Jesus] by the grace of God 
should taste death for every man." Titus 2: 
13, 14, "Jesus Christ . . . gave himself for 
us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity." 
I Peter 3: 18, "For Christ also hath once 
suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that 
he might bring us to God." John 10: 1 1, "I 
am the good shepherd : the good shepherd 
giveth his life for the sheep." 

5. That the substitute be able to endure 
adequate sufferings, and survive. Scripture : 
John 10: 18, "I have power to lay it [my life] 
down, and I have power to take it again." 
John 2: 19 and 21, "Jesus said unto them, 
"Destroy this temple, and in three days I 
will raise it up. But he spake of the temple 
of his body." Acts 2: 24, " Whom God hath 
raised up, having loosed the pains of death: 
because it was not possible that he should 
be holden of it." Rev. i: 18, "I am he that 
liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive 



Substitution. 49 

forevermore. Amen/' Heb. 7: 25, ''Where- 
fore he is able also to save them to the utter- 
most that come unto God by him, seeing he 
ever liveth to make intercession for them.'* 
6. That adequate, pubhc notice of the sub- 
stitution be given throughout every part of 
the government. Scripture: Matt. 2: I, 2, 
and II, ''Now when Jesus was born in Beth- 
lehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the 
King, behold there came wise men from the 
East to Jerusalem, saying. Where is he that 
is born king of the Jews? for we have seen 
his star in the east, and are come to worship 
him. And when they were come into the 
house, they saw the young child with Mary, 
his mother, and fell down and worshiped 
him." From this incident we may infer how 
wide had been the publication of the coming 
of the Messiah. More than five hundred years 
before a prophet had said (see Hag. 2: 7), 
"And I will shake all nations, and the desire 
of all nations shall come." And from the fall 
itself the promise had been published that the 
seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's 
head. Isa. 52: 3, "For thus saith the Lord, 
Ye have sold yourselves for naught; anc} ye 

4 



so Gons Method with Man. 

shall be redeemed without money/* See also 
chapters 53 and 55, both of which, though 
written seven hundred years before Christ, 
are burdened with the redemptive scheme. 

7. That the substitution, equally with pen- 
alty, be adapted to impress the governed, 
and so maintain authority. Scripture: Psalm 
130: 4, ''But there is forgiveness with thee, 
that thou mayest be feared." Ex. 34: 6-^^ 
''The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long- 
suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, 
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving in- 
iquity, transgression, and sin, and that will 
by no means clear the guilty." Psal. 2:11, 12, 
"Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with 
trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, 
and ye perish from the way, when his wrath 
is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they 
that put their trust in him." Jer. 33: 9, 
"And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise 
and an honor before all the nations of the 
earth, which shall hear all the good that I do 
unto them: and they shall fear and tremble 
for all the goodness and for all the prosperity 
that I procure unto it." Psalm 85: 8-1 1, 
"I will hear what God the Lord will speak: 



Substitution, 51 

for he will speak peace unto his people, and 
to his saints: but let them not turn again to 
folly. Surely his salvation is nigh them that 
fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. 
Mercy and truth are met together; righteous- 
ness and peace have kissed each other. Truth 
shall spring out of the earth ; and righteous- 
ness shall look down from heaven." John i, 
14, ''And the Word was made flesh, and 
dwelt among us . . . full of grace and 
truth." Rom. 2: 4, ''The goodness of God 
leadeth thee [is adapted to lead thee] to re- 
pentance." CoL i: 20, "And having made 
peace through the blood of his cross, by him 
to reconcile all things unto himself" 

8. That no guilty party escape penalty, 
except on repentance and return to good 
citizenship — the sufferings of the substitute 
being merely provisory. Scripture: Luke 13: 
3, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise 
perish." (Also v. 5.) John 3: 18, "He 
that believeth on him (the Son) is not con- 
demned ; but he that believeth not is con- 
demned already, because he hath not believed 
in the name of the only begotten Son of God." 
Verse 36, "He that believeth on the Son hath 



52 GoD's Method with Man. 

everlasting life: and he that believeth not the 
Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God 
abideth on him." Mark i6: i6, **He that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but 
he that believeth not shall be damned." 

9. That the party rescued by substitution 
from capital punishment owe his allegiance 
thenceforth wholly to the substitute. Scrip- 
ture: I Cor. 6: 19, 20, '*Ye are not your 
own; for ye are bought with a price: there- 
fore glorify God in your body, and in your 
spirit, which are God's." Rom. 14: 8, 
** Whether we live therefore, or die, we are 
the Lord's." Acts 20: 28, *'To feed the 
Church of God, which he hath purchased 
Avith his own blood." i Cor. 7: 23, ''Ye 
are bought with a price; be ye not servants 
of men." Rom. 5: 22, ''For the Father 
judgeth no man, but hath committed all 
judgment unto the Son." 

10. That the substitute shall not in the end 
be a loser on account of the sacrifice he has 
made. Scripture: Isa. 53: 10, 11, "When 
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, 
he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his 
days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall pros- 



Substitution, 53 

per in his hands. He shall see of the travail 
of his soul, and shall be satisfied/' Heb. 12: 
2, ''Looking unto Jesus the author and fin- 
isher of our faith; who for the joy that was 
set before him endured the cross, despising 
the shame, and is set down at the right hand 
of the throne of God/' Phil. 2: 8-1 1, ''And 
being found in fashion as a man, he humbled 
himself, and became obedient unto death, 
even the death of the cross. Wherefore God 
hath also highly exalted him, and given him 
a name which is above every name: that at 
the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
of things in heaven, and things in earth, and 
things under the earth; and that every tongue 
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to 
the glory of God the Father." i Pet. r: 11, 
"When it testified beforehand the sufferings 
of Christ, and the glory that should follow.'* 
Heb. 2: 9, "But we see Jesus, who was made 
a little lower than the angels for the suffering 
of death, crowned with glory and honor." 

Now, what candid man will say, in view 
of the foregoing citations, that the scheme of 
substitution announced in the Scriptures and 
executed by Jesus Christ does not meet every 



54 GoD's Method with Man. 

possible demand whether of state policy, of 
justice, or of mercy? 

The act of Zaleucus, one of the kings of 
Antioch, has been often quoted as constituting 
an illustration, though somewhat imperfect, of 
this principle of governmental substitution. 
The king's son, the prince royal, committed 
an offense, the penalty of which was that the 
culprit's eyes should be put out. The king's 
heart yearned for his son. He could not bear 
to see him groping his way in total darkness; 
but what could he do? The king and the 
father struggled together in his breast. *'The 
law must be maintained, but my son must 
not be made blind.'* So the king submitted 
to the loss of one of his own eyes, that only 
one of his son's might be put out. Rev. 
William Taylor well remarks on this incident: 
*^If a regiment of his subjects had volunteered 
to give up their eyes to save the prince from 
the penalty of the law, the king could not 
have accepted such a substitute; and, if he 
had done so, the act so far from vindicating 
the honor and authority of his laws would 
have outraged every principle of justice; for 
society had claims on them that he could not 



Substitution. 55 

cancel nor ignore. But the king, in his inde- 
pendent sovereignty, could consent to the 
personal humiliation and pain of losing his 
eye without the infraction of any principle of 
right, and thus harmonize the administration 
of justice with the exercise of mercy.'* 



56 Gons Method with Man, 



Chapter VI. 

INITIAL SALVATION, 

REDEMPTION by Christ Jesus procures 
for man all blessings, spiritual and tem- 
poral, present and prospective, actual and 
possible. Among these are life, divine rev- 
elation with its didactic teaching and its 
proffers of salvation, the continuance of the 
Sabbath, the preaching of the Gospel, and 
the strivings and illuminations of the Holy 
Spirit. These blessings extend so far as to 
make personal present and eternal salvation 
possible to every human being. This, then, 
seems to be the condition of us all. We 
enter upon existence with a poisoned nature, 
with procHvities to sin, latent at first, but 
gradually developing with time and occasion, 
and growing with our growth. An irrespon- 
sible infant is practically innocent, though de- 
filed in its nature. Passively it has inherited 
the taint of sin, and passively, also, it has 
justification unto life through Jesus Christ. 



Initial Salvation, 57 

Being justified, it is an heir of God and 
entitled to all the blessings of the covenant 
of grace including holiness and heaven. So 
in like manner are all justified believers. Let 
no man entertain a doubt touching the safety 
and eternal blessedness of any one dying in 
the state of irresponsible infancy, or of the 
safety and eternal blessedness of a believer to 
whom death comes finding him in a state of 
assured justification before God. The infant 
and the man are alike parties to the covenant 
of grace which entitles them to holiness and 
heaven. Both are alike free from any volun- 
tary antagonism to holiness, and, should death 
come suddenly to both, our covenant-keeping 
Lord will surely perfect that which is lacking 
in each, even in the very article of death. 
Infants are justified ; but that they are not 
entirely sanctified every parent knows. An 
infant dying goes to heaven. How? since 
without holiness no man shall see the Lord. 
Answer: By the purifying power of the Holy 
Ghost exerted in the very* article of death. 
The case of a justified believer is a com- 
plete parallel. There is therefore no contra- 
diction among the three following statements : 



5 8 GoD's Method with Man. 

I. ^'Without holiness'' (obviously entireholi- 
ness) ''no man shall see the Lord," no man 
shall enter heaven. 2. A merely justified 
believer is without entire holiness. 3. A man 
coming to the article of death as a merely 
justified believer does, upon passing through 
it, see God, does enter heaven. 

In many cases children never lose their 
justified relation to God. These happy expe- 
riences of childhood, it is to be hoped, will be 
greatly multiplied as time passes, and parents 
shall come to see their duty and privilege 
herein. But we must recognize things as they 
are. The fact is, the great majority of chil- 
dren do go astray almost with the faintest 
dawn of the moral sense; nor as a rule do we 
meet with any striking differences between 
the children of professors and those of non- 
professors in this regard. It therefore com- 
monly happens that when we find a boy of 
twelve, or a man of sixty, or a person of any 
age between them, who has not been regen- 
erated by the Holy Spirit, we find a person 
in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of 
iniquity. To every such person we must 
say as Jesus said to Nicodemus, ''Except a 



Initial Salvation. 59 

man" (not merely a vile man, but a maTi) 
''be born again he can not see the kingdom 
of God." 

*'This," you say, **is hard. I find myself 
thrust forth into this world without my own 
motion or consent, born into surroundings 
not at all of my own choosing, in a world 
where the current is commonly toward the 
wrong instead of the right, born with a nature 
strongly tending to the wrong, and exposed 
through life to the machinations of evil angels 
who throng the air and plot against my char- 
acter and my hopes. And yet, under all these 
disadvantages, I am told I must spring up 
from sinful habits and affections, and attain a 
character of holiness on pain of everlasting 
despair and death." 

Your language, sir, puts the case strongly, 
yet I will assume, candidly, and will attempt 
an answer. First of all, it is important to 
examine the statement itself I claim it is 
not full and complete; that it brings into the 
field only one class of the forces that act upon 
character. That we are born without choice 
of our own, and in circumstances not of our 
choosing, is true; and the same is true of 



6o GoD's Method with Man. 

every being made, since choice is not possible 
anterior to existence. If, therefore, God ever 
create a being he must directly or providen- 
tially decide its date and place. You say your 
nature strongly tends to sin ; and so it does ; 
but God did not allow you to exist as one of 
the progeny of Adam without a powerful anti- 
dote of grace that was present in your heart 
from your birth. You were born into the 
world a child of God and an heir of heaven, 
through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who died for you. You speak of the current 
of the world; but that current did not strike 
you in your first years, during which, accord- 
ing to God's plan, you were under the tutelage 
of the best of friends — your mother. When, 
therefore, you began to meet the evil forces 
of the world you had light enough and char- 
acter enough to recognize and abhor vileness. 
If you fell into sin you did it knowingly and 
against the protestations of conscience. You 
were never compelled to sin. The wrong 
never offered you equal advantages, nor gave 
you equal pleasure with the right. In a 
word, every wrong- doer knows that the cir- 
cumstances under which he has sinned are 



Initial Salvation. 6i 

precisely such as he would not allow in apol- 
ogy for offenses committed against himself. 

You speak of Satanic influence. Estimate 
it as you will, it is but suasion, never com- 
pulsion ; and we never account him who has 
sinned innocent because he was coaxed into 
it. But here again is an important fact left 
out of the field. If the evil angels are busy, 
what of the good angels? The Bible intima- 
tion is that but one-third of the angels fell ; 
so you may well say in this regard, ''More 
are they that are for me than they that are 
against me.'' Strange that you should make 
so much of the evil angels, comparatively few 
in number and under the chains of sin await- 
ing eternal fire, and then hold of so little 
account the ministry of God's mighty hosts, 
that have acted so large a part in every age 
in connection with his plans for human salva- 
tion. How they come and go betwixt earth 
and heaven. How they pry into redemption. 
How they minister to little children and re- 
present them in the presence of God, even 
beholding his face in their near approach. 
How glad they were when God gave a Savior 
to the world. How they rejoice when a sinner 



.62 GoD's Method with Man. 

repents. How they minister to the sons of 
light. How they dispute with Satan and 
thwart his schemes. How joyfully they bear 
the spirit even of a beggar to Abraham's 
bosom. These happy, holy beings are all 
around us; and yet, while we hasten to ascribe 
evil suggestions to Satan, we almost never 
ascribe our pure thoughts and feelings or our 
opportune discovery of our way out of temp- 
tation or trouble, to the possible agency of a 
celestial friend and helper. 

But the chief omission lies in your failure 
to recognize the agency of the Holy Spirit, 
who comes into the world to reprove the 
world of sin and of righteousness and of judg- 
ment. .How faithful is this holy, omniscient, 
divine Reprover. How early did he begin to 
enlighten your mind and move your heart. 
How many strange thoughts and queries con- 
cerning God, heaven, and eternity were 
inspired in your mind at a very tender age 
by the blessed Holy Spirit. He led out your 
thought. He made your conscience tender. 
He awakened in you^a desire to be good; 
and when you sinned against your own con- 
science he reproved you and set your sin in 



Initial Salvation, 63 

order before you. It is remarkable that the 
Holy Spirit, who begins his strivings so early, 
should continue them so long. Cases are 
many of persons who have resisted and 
grieved the Holy Spirit for threescore years 
and ten, and who have still been the subjects 
of his gracious invitations. Some at so late 
a day have yielded to his strivings and made 
their peace with God. 

Just here is the peculiar privilege and glory 
of the dispensation you are under. All beings 
brought into existence in a pure and holy 
state are under a strict dispensation of law; 
and if found guilty of one offense are wholly 
and irretrievably lost so far as the terms of 
their dispensation are concerned. This was 
the fate of the angels that sinned; and this 
was the fate of Adam wdien he sinned, but 
God changed his administration and brought 
in a better covenant; so that though, in the 
case of our first parent, ^'the judgment ^vas 
by one [offense] to condemnation, the free 
gift is of many offenses unto justification." 
Instead, therefore, of finding fault with the 
administration under which you have your 



64 GoD's Method with Man, 

existence, you have reason to bless God and 
congratulate yourself that you are under the 
most lenient and merciful dispensation that 
was ever vouchsafed to man or angel. 



Conviction for Sin 65 



Chapter VIL 

conviction for sin. 

WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? There 
is a great deal in this question. The 
man that asks it has learned some valuable 
truths, even if he be as untaught in theology 
as was the heathen jailer. He has learned 
what we must all learn, — 

1. I am itot saved, I am a sinner, lost and 
utterly undone. 

2. / may be saved. The question in itself 
implies hope, and not despair. Salvation is 
provided, and is somehow within reach. ' God 
that is angry with me because of my sin, is 
propitious nevertheless. There is mercy with 
him that he may be feared. I may turn and" 
live. Mercy is not clean gone forever; and I, 
a wretch undone and lost, may yet find favor 
with a holy God. 

3. Something must he done. Whatever God 
has done in giving his Son, whatever Jesus has 
done in giving himself to die for me, what- 

5 



66 GoD's Method with Man, 

ever the Holy Spirit has done in inditing the 
Holy Scriptures and thrusting spiritual light 
into my soul, and whatever the minister and the 
Church have done, these all are not enough ; 
something yet must be done or I am lost. 

4. / mtcst do something. After all the efforts 
made for me by others, and all their prayers 
and tears, the question lies between God and 
my own soul. Here I stand under the search- 
ing eye of God; and it is borne in upon me 
that whatever he could do to save me has 
been well done, and that now I must move 
or be lost. Nay, I am lost already; but where 
is deliverance, and how can I find it? 

5. / must do the right thing. True, I can 
not earn salvation. Nothing that I can do 
possesses any value as a price in my hand. 
Nor does God stand upon etiquette, and de- 
mand that I shall execute given formulas in 
coming to him ; but there is a door of mercy, 
and in my blindness and weakness and sorrow 
and terror I grope to find it. Where shall I 
find it? How shall I find it? What, in dis- 
tinction from all others, is my true line of 
action in order to secure the salvation of 
my soul? 



Conviction for Sin. 67 

When the jailor asked of Paul and Silas, 
'*What must I do to be saved?" he received 
at first a very laconic answer: ''Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved." This general answer was amplified 
and supplemented by fuller instructions, de- 
livered shortly after to himself and all his 
family; which instructions resulted by the 
blessing of God in his and their conversion. 
Permit me, my friend, you who now ask this 
question, to imitate these good men, and 
speak unto you the Word of the Lord. 

I must remind you that the first direction 
given to sinful men, in God's method of lead- 
ing them to salvation, is, ''Repent,'' This 
was an element in the teaching of the old 
prophets; this was the introductory word with 
John the Baptist; this was the first demand 
of Jesus Christ; this was what the twelve and 
the seventy were to preach when he sent 
them out; this was the startling word with 
which Peter met his hearers when at Pente- 
cost he preached the grand opening sermon 
of the Gospel dispensation; and this Paul 
declares is the great characteristic doctrine of 
his ministry both among Jews and Gentiles. 



6S GoD's Method with Man. 

I am glad to believe you are already in a 
penitent mood, at least to some extent, else 
you had not come to me with this question. 
Nevertheless, let us begin at the beginning. 



Repentance. 69 



Chapter VIII. 

REPENTANCE. 

WHAT IS REPENTANCE? Repentance is 
sorrow. Sorrow for sin. Sorrow for 
my sin. A godly sorrow for my sin. Such a 
sorrow as leads me to abandon my sin, to look 
with sadness and loathing upon my former 
practice of it, and to take sides with God 
against myself in regard to all the wrongs of 
my former life, subscribing heartily to the 
justice of the law that condemns me, and 
looking for deliverance from the just, judg- 
ments of God only through his mercy in 
Christ Jesus. 

Confession is one of the signs or fruits of 
repentance. This will be hearty and full when 
repentance is adequately deep. It will be 
open and public according as past offenses 
have been so. No man who truly repents 
will attempt to conceal or palliate the wrongs 
of his past life. 

Reformation of Life. Whoever has real 



70 GoD's Method with Man, 

godly sorrow for his sin will at once forsake 
his sin, or at least make strenuous effort to 
break the power of sinful habit, and come to 
innocence of life. It is not, as I apprehend, 
possible that a man should at once repent 
and cling to any sinful practice. *' Bring forth 
therefore fruits meet for repentance,'' said 
John. '*Let the wicked forsake his way, and 
the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let 
him return unto the Lord, and he will have 
mercy upon him, and unto our God, for he 
will abundantly pardon.'' 

Restitution. Every man who seeks God 
in sincerity will soon come to see, in case he 
have been fraudulent or dishonest in his deal 
with other men, that the wrong must be 
made right. I am persuaded there are many 
men who set out to seek salvation with some 
earnestness, and who pray on until the Holy 
Spirit brings the duty of restitution squarely 
before them, when they estimate the magni- 
tude of the wrong to be righted, become irres- 
olute, and at length turn away and abandon 
forever all thought of seeking God. They 
soon sink into the stoicism of despair, and 
float on to the cataract of death. 



Repentance, 71 

1750 Pounds to the Ton. Some years ago 
a friend of mine was laboring in one of the 
Atlantic cities. He found a man in his con- 
gregation, one evening, deeply distressed, but 
who could not be prevailed upon to take any 
step looking toward his personal salvation. 
The minister was importunate with him, but 
in vain. His answer, still repeated, was, '*It 
is of no use, I am a lost man.** My friend in- 
sisted on knowing what was the occasion of his 
despair. He refused to make any revelation, 
but said, at length, **I know your residence 
and will call on you in the morning.'* The 
next morning he came and told his story: 
** Thirteen years ago I established myself as 
a coal-dealer in the upper part of the city. I 
did business there three years, and all that 
time my ton was 1750 pounds. I went out 
of business and soon lost all my ill-gotten 
gains. I am a poor man to-day, and work on 
a moderate salary. I would be glad to be a 
Christian, but find this terrible passage in 
my history hanging with a cruel, depressing, 
damning weight on my soul. I feel that I 
ought to make restitution, and would be glad 
to do it, but have not the means; and, in- 



72 Govs Method with Man. 

deed, the parties I defrauded are scattered and 
gone. Many of them I presume are dead ; 
and I doubt if I could now identify one per- 
son, and ascertain the amount he suffered by 
my wickedness. What can I do?'' exclaimed 
the poor, sad man. **I do n't know," replied 
my friend, *^but God will always help a man 
who really seeks him with the determination 
to do the best he can." 

At length, as they talked on, the penitent 
man said, '* I have retained my old books and 
have been looking them over. I have thus 
ascertained the amount of my wrong-doing. 
I find it to be so much [naming the amount], 
and I have cast the interest on the amount as 
near as I could. The total is this;" and he 
showed the figures. ^*Now," said he, ''as I 
was coming down this morning, I thought of 
this as my only way out. You are city mis- 
sionary, and are constantly dispensing articles 
to the poor. I think I can spare from my 
salary, by close economy, fifty dollars per 
month. Suppose I put that amount into your 
hands, for the poor of the city, on the first 
secular day of every month." This my friend 
thought the only thing he could do in the 



Repentance. 73 

circumstances. The repentant man at- once 
made his check for the amount, and contin- 
ued to hand him a Hke amount till the whole 
was paid. 

On the evening of that day this man was 
the first person to kneel at the communion 
rail as a seeker ; and he soon found peace. 
He has been a steadfast and honored member 
of the Church ever since, doing great credit 
to the Christian name by his pure life. 

Prayerfulness. Every true penitent is 
marked by his prayerfulness. The man who 
is conscious that he does truly and earnestly 
repent of his sins, and intends to lead a new 
life, even though his heart be bowed down 
with a weight of guilt and sorrow, always 
dares to come to God ; for such a heart seems 
to know as by instinct, that it is to look for 
relief to the same great and good God whose 
love has been abused by all the past of sin 
and shame. It is but natural for such a one 
to cry, smiting on his breast, *^God be mer- 
ciful to me a sinner. Have mercy upon me, 
O God, according to thy loving kindness; 
according unto the multitude of thy tender 
mercies blot out my transgressions. Look 



74 GoD's Method with Man. 

upon my affliction and my pain ; and forgive 
all my sins. For thy name's sake, O Lord, 
pardon mine iniquity; for it is great. Re- 
member not the sins of my youth nor my 
transgressions; according to thy mercy re- 
member thou me, for thy goodness' sake, O 
Lord. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot 
out all mine iniquities. Forsake me not, O 
Lord, O my God, be not far from me. Make 
haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation.'' 

Humility. The spirit of repentance is al- 
ways a spirit of deep humihty. The senti- 
ment present and prevalent in the soul is the 
recognition of its own guiltiness and ruin by 
sin. There is no heart to contemplate the sins 
of other men, nor to excuse or palliate my 
own. The desire to stand well with myself in 
my present state is gone. A personal compli- 
ment would pain me; for I have come to have 
a strange relish for the voice of God sounding 
through my soul and giving the lie to every flat- 
tering word. I have had enough of myself; I 
abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. 
Oh that I knew where I might find Htm. 

Repentance Progressive. Penitential sor- 
row has a history of progress, as it seems to 



Repentance. 75 

me, in each human heart. At first it is 
largely of the nature of the simple dread of 
punishment. The fear of the Lord is the 
beginning of wisdom, and the terror of the 
Lord does in many cases fearfully shake the 
soul of a penitent in its earliest throes and 
struggles. I am aware there are great num- 
bers of persons who, judging from their testi- 
mony, were led to Christ simply by the power 
of love; but this, where the repentance and 
conversion have been genuine, is probably a 
mistaken testimony. Very likely the mistake 
has arisen from a failure to thoroughly analyze 
the emotional conditions through which the 
soul passed on its way to salvation. How 
many men would repent during the next year 
if every man could know certainly that he was 
to live and enjoy youth and health, with the 
usual pleasures of sense and sin for a hun- 
dred years to come? I suspect not one. But 
though fear and dread are at the beginning 
of repentance, they become less prominent as 
the process goes on ; and soon give place, less 
or more, to penitential sorrow on account of 
guilt; and the mind is led more and more 
away from the mere dread of penalty and 



76 "GoD's Method with Man. 

coming doom, to a recognition of its own 
deep sinfulness; and later on, into a sad but 
full approval of the law that condemns it to 
overthrow. The soul that cries — 

"What have I, then, wherein to trust? 
I nothing have, I nothing am ; 
Excluded is my every boast, 

My glory swallowed up in shame. 

Guilty I stand before thy face ; 
On me I feel thy wrath abide ; 
. 'T is just the sentence should take place, 
' T is just — but oh, thy son hath died !'* 

is not far from the kingdom of heaven ; nay, is 
now at the very door of the house of merc}^. 
Though it is proper to recognize repentance 
as having a history of progress in the mind, 
it does not follow that it is always a long-con- 
tinued state of mind before conversion. It is 
known to vary in length of time from a few 
hours to a period of many months. In some 
cases the process has been apparently not so 
long as an hour. The penitent thief, great 
numbers on the day of Pentecost, the assem- 
bly that heard Peter's first sermon at Cesarea, 
and possibly the Ethiopian eunuch, may be 
cited as instances of a very speedy process by 



Repentance. 77 

which men have been brought away from -the 
hfe of nature into the experience of the par- 
doning rriercy of God, through repentance, 
submission, and faith. 

Submission to God. In immediate con- 
nection with repentance is a great duty and 
privilege of the seeker of salvation, which 
may be recognized under the general idea of 
submission to God. To all genuine seekers 
of salvation God makes known his will con- 
cerning them. This he commonly reveals 
item by item. The first class is of things to 
be renounced and abandoned ; the second is 
of duties to be henceforth done. It is sur- 
prising how many persons there are who at 
times make efforts, apparently earnest efforts, 
to become Christians, who nevertheless refuse 
to abandon sinful practices. I don't know 
that there has been a year of my public life 
wherein some instance of the kind did not oc- 
cur. Men pray to God for mercy, and keep 
on selling rum or drinking rum, or driving 
sharp bargains, or playing the petty tyrant in 
their homes, or making idols of their children, 
and so refusing to subject them to wholesome 
discipline and restraint, or indulging in some 



78 GoD's Method with Man, 

forbidden lust or passion, or harboring malice 
in their hearts, or seeking worldly honors and 
such like things : and yet wonder that they do 
not find peace with God. ''If I regard iniq- 
uity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." 
Quack Doctors. Let no man deceive him- 
self herein, nor suffer himself to be deceived, 
by quack soul-doctors. Salvation is free, but 
not so free that a dishonest heart can receive 
it. All known evil must be put away, so 
far as the intention is concerned. Salvation 
means salvation. It is a great, solemn, glori- 
ous thing to be changed from a child of the 
devil to a child of God and an heir of eternal 
life; and whoso would seek this change suc- 
cessfully must be thoroughly in earnest and 
thoroughly true. It is a great deal to be 
entirely true to man; but it is a great deal 
more to be true to God and to your own soul. 
No man ever sought God in vain who sought 
him with due earnestness and constancy, and 
who obeyed the light brought to his con- 
science by the Holy Ghost. The trouble is, 
men want to be saved from hell; while God 
wants to save men from sin and prepare them 
for the kingdom of heaven by setting up the 



Repentance, 79 

kingdom of heaven within them. Every man 
who sets himself to seek God in earnest is 
sure to pray up to test questions; for just as 
he is approaching the gate of salvation he is 
approaching also the duties, crosses and trials 
of the Christian life. He can not be a Chris- 
tian without taking on him the yoke of Christ. 
He can not be made alive in Christ Jesus till 
he shall consent to become dead to the world 
in all those particulars touching which the 
Holy Spirit may be pleased to impart guiding 
light to his mind. 

Great Danger from Bad Nursing. Just 
here is where many of our spiritual nurses 
fail. A person kneels at the altar to seek 
pardon and regeneration of soul. The seeker 
is in earnest and begins to utter himself in 
honest pleadings before God. This is all 
well ; but the prayer does not proceed very far 
before test questions begin to be presented. 
Will you break from those worldly associ- 
ations? Will you quit all useless reading? 
Will you let God into your business? Will 
you sanctify the domestic relations, and let 
God come in and rule your house? These 
questions or their like are sure to confront 



8o Gons Method with Man, 

the soul as it comes up to the strait gate. 
To some of them the seeker finds it easy to 
respond, **I will;" but before the catalogue 
is ended he may find great difficulty in getting 
his own consent to the terms upon which he 
sees grace is suspended. The judgment, the 
conscience, and the will are arrayed on one 
side, and affection and pride or prejudice or 
covetousness, as the case may be, on the 
other; and there is war within. The seeker 
is himself surprised and disappointed. He 
came seeking peace, and, behold trouble. 
He cries to God, and God calls him to the 
pain of parting with idols and cutting off 
right-hand sins. Here, then, come the 
throes of agony. Distress and anguish are 
come upon him. What shall be done? 
Nothing is more natural than the impulse to 
try to comfort such a one. And yet that is 
just the worst thing that can be done for 
the case. 

Urge the Surrender. The only way out 
of the struggle is through the struggle, to 
victory, peace, and God. A little personal 
inquiry as to whether the surrender at every 
point has been consciously made, and a good 



Repentance, 8i 

deal of courageous fatherly urging to *'let go/' 
may very likely help the struggler through. 
But if you wait in idle ignorance of the case 
till the spasm of pain subsides — for great 
agony is generally intermittent — and then 
draw near and ask the seeker, **Don't you 
feel a little better?" you will very likely be 
answered, ^*Yes." And then you will be 
tempted to say, ''Well, now bless the Lord 
for a little relief/' and to pass the word 
around, ''This soul has found peace/' This 
is what I call spiritual quackery. It and its 
like are employed all over the land, and, I sus- 
pect, in every denomination. It has brought 
thousands to profess salvation who never died 
to sin, never knew converting grace, were 
never made partakers, even in the lowest de- 
gree, of the divine nature. Many of these 
are brought into the Church in due time and 
form; but they are disappointed in religion, 
and the Church is disappointed in them. 
Their relish is keen as ever for worldly pas- 
times and worldly gains; and they have no 
new relish for holy employments, holy con- 
versation, or holy joys. They have no relish 
for closet devotions, for family prayer, or for 

6 



82 GoD's Method with Man, 

the social means of grace. And yet these 
persons nnust carry the appearance of being 
devout, prayerful, self-denying, cross-bearing, 
heavenly-minded Christians through life; or 
else, by dishonoring or abandoning their pro- 
fession, bring reproach upon the Church. 

A Plea for Thoroughness. — In mercy to 
souls, soon to appear before the bar of God, 
in mercy to the Church that has in it already 
tenfold more of this material than it knows 
what to do with, and in mercy to the world 
that has a right to expect the members of the 
Church to shed a guiding hght upon their 
darkness, I beg this method of treating souls 
may be discontinued. And you, my friend, 
who would seek salvation, I pray you be 
thorough with your own heart. This is your 
critical moment. Don't allow yourself to be 
misled by the mistaken kindness of your 
Christian friends. Don't allow yourself to 
rest until you know that every relavent ques- 
tion is settled according to the will of God. 
God knows what is best for you. He will 
require of you nothing that you will find ulti- 
mately hard or depressing. Depend upon it, 
his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Yield 



Repentance. 83 

yourself at every point, and Christ will surely 
come in. So shall you find rest to your soul. 

If there were time, I should be pleased to 
talk with the reader further on this subject 
of heart surrender; for it lies at the founda- 
tion of the whole Christian life. If, in the 
outset, this surrender to God be not thorough 
and complete, up to the light which God may 
be pleased to give the seeker, there will surely 
be difficulty and embarrassment at every step 
of the way in attempting to lead a life of 
godliness. The more thorough, deep, and 
hearty your surrender shall be, the nearer you 
will find yourself to Christ, and the more 
your love will flow out to him. And in pro- 
portion as these things exist will you find 
your Christian walk easy and delightful. 

In some cases this yielding up of the soul 
to God seems to be a simple act of the mind 
by which one surrenders himself without par- 
ticularizing any thing ; while in other cases 
the transaction is by items. The Church de- 
mands of her candidates that they pledge 
themselves in these words: *^I renounce the 
devil and all his works, the vain pomp and 
glory of the world, with all covetous desires 



84 GoD's Method with Man. 

of the same, and the carnal desire^ of the 
flesh, so that I will not follow or be led by 
them." But whatever be the order in which 
your soul shall yield itself to God, your sur- 
render must needs imply the pledge and pur- 
pose to separate yourself from the evils and 
vanities of the world, and to lead a pure and 
blameless life; to identify yourself with the 
cause of Christ in the earth, and to shed, by 
your example and spirit, a guiding light on 
the path to heaven. The Methodist Episcopal 
Church puts it in three particulars: ** i. Do- 
ing no harm, avoiding evil of every kind. 
2. Doing good, by being in every way mer- 
ciful. 3. Attending upon all the ordinances 
of religion/' 



Faith. 85 



Chapter IX. # 

FAITH, 

SALVATION is by faith. There is a sense 
in which it is by faith alone : for what- 
ever else a man may have, if he have not 
faith he is not saved ; and whatever he may 
lack, if he have faith he is saved. Whatever, 
therefore, helps your faith helps 3^our salva- 
tion; and whatever hinders your faith hinders 
your salvation. Jesus said, ''How can ye 
beheve which receive honor one of another?" 
With equal propriety it might be asked, How 
can ye believe so long as y^ indulge in any 
known sin? *'If I regard iniquity in my 
heart, the Lord will not hear me." Salvation 
is by faith — appropriating faith, and appro- 
priating faith can be exercised when there is 
consciousness of complete surrender to God : 
not before. 

But let us look at faith itself. The faith by 
which a man is justified is of the nature of 
trust — reliance; the act of leaning over and 



S6 GoD's Method with Man. 

bearing one*s weight upon a support. It 
differs wholly from mere assent to truth, as 
being altogether beyond it. In all Christian 
lands mafi are found who accept the Bible 
as a book of truth: yet they are not saved 
from their sins. Their faith is simply a well- 
grounded opinion, or mere historic belief. 
There must be trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
or there can be no salvation. The distinction 
between mere historic faith and saving faith, 
or trust, may perhaps be made clear in this 
way. Suppose a man relate to you a fact 
that you did not know before; as, that Napo- 
leon I was born in Corsica, or that Queen 
Victoria is the daughter, not of William IV, 
her predecessor, but of the Duke of Kent. 
You accept the statement as true on his au- 
thority, and without further inquiry. In this 
you exercise in your informant the faith of 
credence. You believe the statement simply 
because he has made it to you ; and you have 
acted quite rationally, since you must know 
that he could have no motive to deceive you. 
This faith of credence is called historic faith, 
since it is the faith by which all historic 
facts are received by each generation of men 



Faith. 87 

touching occurrences before their own time. 
And the reason is precisely the one named 
above, namely, that all men know that a 
writer of history can have no motive to mis- 
state facts. So it is comparatively easy to 
accept a historic statement from a man, even 
a stranger, if we know either that the state- 
ment is intrinsically probable, or that the 
author of it has the appearance of candor, or 
that he could have no motive to deceive us. 
But now, suppose this same man, who 
has made the statement about Napoleon or 
Queen Victoria, propose to you, at the same 
interview, to enter into a copartnership with 
him for life. He gives you the points of his 
history, an account of his business, his re- 
sources, and his prospects, and an inventory 
of his assets. He requires you to prepare a 
like inventory of yours under his eye, to put 
all you have into common stock with him, 
and to devote the labors of your future life to 
the joint concern. How nozv ? You could 
believe without effort a historic statement 
made by this man: '*but, " you say **when 
it comes to trusting all I have or ever am to 
have, upon his honor, power, and sagacity, 



8S GoD's Method with Man. 

this is quite another thing/' So, indeed, it is: 
credence is one thing, trust is ^^ quite another 
thing,'^ After due examination, however, you 
conclude to accept his proffer: the inventory- 
is made, the covenant of partnership is entered 
into, and you have become commercially one. 
This is your act of faith by which you have 
united yourself with him. Now, there is a 
relationship between you and him that exists 
between you and no other person. This rela- 
tionship is the result of your trust. This man 
might have gone on relating facts new to you, 
at every interview for a life-time, and you might 
have accepted each statement as true, on his 
word ; yet there had been no relationship be- 
tween you and him. But wherever there is 
trust there is relationship: and whenever you 
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ you become at 
once savingly related to him. 

This sufficiently explains how it may hap- 
pen that a man may accept the Bible as true, 
and be thoroughly orthodox in his opinions, 
and yet live and die an unsaved man, simply 
because he never comes to Jesus Christ and 
puts himself with all he is and has into his 
hands. Doing this, his faith would at once 



• Faith. 89 

save him by uniting him to the Savior. So 
we say to all, '* Believe [trust] on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'* **He 
that believeth [trusteth] and is baptized shall 
be saved; and he that believeth not [trusteth 
not] shall be damned.'' Salvation is by faith; 
not the faith that consists in a mere opinion 
that what God says is true, but that consists 
in the trust which subjects all I have and all 
I am forever to his divine disposal, and relies 
upon the promises which he has made as 
unfailing props. 

But definitions of faith do not suffice; and 
one who practically knows what it is to repent 
and yield himself over into God's hands with- 
out reserve, is sometimes at a loss to know 
how to exercise the faith that shall bring him 
present conscious peace and the assurance of 
acceptance. It ought to be an encouragement 
to such a one to know, what is a fact, that 
in committing all he has to God for time and 
eternity, a solemn surrender already made, he 
^has exercised the fullest trust in God of which 
he IS capable. The word is, **Have faith in 
God;" and you who have voluntarily com- 
mitted your all to God in this full, free offer- 



90 Gons Method with Man. 

ing, have in that act exercised faith, great 
faith, in God. 

^^But,'' you ask, '^is there not some promise 
of God's Word which I am required specific- 
ally to fasten upon and believe?" Possibly in 
your case there may be, though certainly such 
has not been the uniform experience of per- 
sons in coming into a justified state. The 
Holy Spirit does often lead one whose mem- 
ory is stored with Scripture truth to fix on 
some specific promise, and plead it with a 
specific faith; the promise being the vehicle 
on which the soul goes out and lays hold on 
God. In the great majority of cases, how- 
ever, the seeker of salvation has not been an 
attentive Bible reader; and in such cases the 
faith that saves seems to be a confidence and 
persuasion that God is able now to save me, 
a sinner, and that he now doeth it. 

The doctrine of salvation by faith has been 
all along the object of attack by a vain philos- 
ophy. Men say, *^You are either now saved 
or you are not ; if you are now saved before 
you believe, you are saved without faith; if 
you are not saved till after you believe, then 
you are saved by believing a falsehood. In 



Faith, 91 

either case the doctrine of salvation by faith 
is annihilated." To this it may be answered, 
the life of Christ abounds in illustrative refu- 
tals of such cavils. Take the case of Peter 
walking on the water. He leaps over the side 
of the boat with a faith that says, '* Jesus 
will sustain me. I can walk on the water. I 
shall not sink." And just as his faith main- 
tains its hold so it is to him ; he does not 
sink. But unbelief comes in. ''I shall sink;" 
and so he does. The man with the withered 
arm is commanded to stretch it forth. Had 
unbelief replied, ''I can't," it would have 
continued true so long as unbelief continued 
the perverse reply; but when faith said, ''I 
can," that moment it was according to his 
faith, and he stretched it forth whole, even as 
the other. God suspends spiritual blessings 
on our faith ; and to say that a blessing sus- 
pended on your faith is yours when you 
believe, and not yours when you don't be- 
lieve, is merely to utter the same thing twice ; 
as if I were to say. Whatever is suspended 
on faith is suspended on faith. 

Here, tlien, is Avhat every man may safel}^ 
do that comes with unreserved devotement of 



92 GoD's Method with Man. 

himself to God for justifying grace. He may, 
so soon as he have the testimony of his own 
consciousness that his surrender of himself to 
God is complete, assume the truth of the di- 
vine promise of acceptance, and rest in the 
divine faithfulness, whether his thought take 
hold of any particular promise or not. * * Have 
faith in God," is the word. All things are 
possible to him that believeth ; therefore, per- 
sistently, heroically believe. He is faithful 
and just to forgive us our sins. He waits 
to be gracious. He delighteth in mercy. We 
have redemption according to the riches of 
his grace. Venture on him. He is faith- 
ful that promised. You shall not fall. You 
can not fail. He wrought in you to this end 
— the end of your salvation. He arrested 
you in your sins, and drew your thought to 
him. He brought your heart under deep con- 
viction of your guilt and ruin. He has led 
you every step through repentance and the 
surrender of yourself to him. He has there- 
fore wrought in you to will and to do of 
his own good pleasure. His whole intent at 
every step has manifestly been to lead you to 
himself Will he now contradict himself and 



Faith. 



93 



stultify himself by refusing to receive you? 
You can not tolerate the thought for a mo- 
ment. God can not lie. Therefore just as 
you are, come and cast your helpless soul on 
him by faith — he does receive you. 



94 Govs Method with Man. 



Chapter X. 

JUSTIFICATION. 

JUSTIFICATION is pardon or forgiveness. 
Webster's definition is, *' remission of sin 
and absolution from guilt and punjshment ; or 
an act of free grace by which God pardons 
the sinner and accepts him as righteous, on 
account of the atonement of Christ/' It is 
not in itself a change of character by the infu- 
sion of grace into the heart; but is a gracious 
act whereby God removes condemnation from 
the soul and consents, for Jesus' sake, in view 
of our faith in him, to accept us in him and 
so change our relation to the Divine Being, 
that instead of being condemned criminals, 
we become accepted as innocent subjects of 
his government. 

Pardon is reconciliation of offended God to 
offending m.an. With every sinner, therefore, 
it is the alternative of hell. He must repent, 
and seek and find forgiveness, or he must per- 
ish forever in his sins. Pardon is the leading 



Justification, 95 

forth of the culprit from his cell, to freedom 
instead of to execution. It is mother embrac- 
ing- the child, in the hour of his contrition 
and tears, whose waywardness had caused her 
heart to bleed. It is father meeting and em- 
bracing his long-lost son, upon his return, and 
refusing to listen to the detail of his guilty 
wandering and shame ; but hastening to order 
the signet ring — the sign of endless love — the 
shoes for blistered feet, the best robe and the 
fatted calf. Sin is a capital offense. **The 
wages of sin is death.'' But pardon removes 
the penalty; and '* the gift of God is eternal 
life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

The Pardon was too Late. There is a tra- 
dition of the very early history of Wyoming 
Valley, while yet it was a colony of Connect- 
icut, v/hich runneth thus — An orphan girl, or 
young woman rather, of extrordinary mind 
and great personal attractions, the idol of her 
only brother's heart, was long sought with 
most ardent protestations of love ; and finally, 
under promise of marriage, betrayed to her 
ruin and then forsaken. '^When lust hath 
conceived it bringeth forth sin ; and sin, when 
it is finished, bringeth forth death." To con- 



96 GoD's Method with Man, 

ceal her shame she destroyed her child. For 
this she was apprehended, tried and sentenced 
to be hanged. 

Her brother drew up a petition for her 
pardon and procured many valuable signa- 
tures. This must go to the governor in New 
Haven, Conn. He started in haste upon his 
fleet, favorite horse. No good roads were 
then built. There were no bridges, and the 
streams were swollen. The distance to New 
Haven was about two hundred miles. On 
and on he rode, climbing mountains, wading 
marshes, swimming streams, till he reached 
the governor, and laid the matter before him. 
The governor's heart was deeply moved, and 
the pardon was soon signed and sealed. Now, 
to reach Wyoming Valley before the hour 
of execution w^as the problem. He put his 
horse to the highest speed with which he 
dared to tax him; and the noble brute himself 
seemed to catch his master's inspiration, and 
to exhibit supernatural power of speed and en- 
durance. Almost night and day that brother 
pushed forward; but the day was come, and 
the hour of execution was drawing near before 
he reached the mountain top on the south- 



Justification. 97 

eastern side of the valley. When he reached 
** Prospect Rock" he could see the gathered 
crowd at the place of execution, and he tried 
to attract attention by his utmost power of 
voice, holding the document aloft and shout- 
ing, '' Pardon — Pardon.'' But he could see 
no indication that he was heard: so remount- 
ing his horse, he sped on to the scene, where 
he saw his sister hanging in the air, dead! 
The pardon was too late. The broken-hearted 
man turned away, sick at heart, from all soci- 
ety. He sought a cave in the neighboring 
mountain, and lived thenceforth a hermit. 
His death occurred in the early part of the 
present century. 

In the case of this culprit the lateness of 
the pardon was unavoidable. He who was at 
once brother, friend, and intercessor, did his 
best. The pardoning power did its best. Still 
the pardon was too late. 

Be in Time. The time draws near for the 
execution of the extreme penalty of the law 
upon every living sinner. Pardon is provided, 
and even in advance, promised. But it must 
be sought betimes. True, there is no long 
journey to make, nor are there morasses to 

7 



98 GoD's Method with Man, 

wade, nor rivers to ford or swim. ''The word 
is nigh thee/' But the crime has been com- 
mitted, sentence has been pronounced, and its 
execution is inevitable, though the date is 
not disclosed to the criminal. Pardon, to be 
secured, must be sought by the criminal him- 
self. The penalty is death — eternal death. 
The blow may fall at any moment, and must 
fall soon. Therefore beware. 

The Scripture hath said, ''Because judg- 
ment against an evil work is not executed 
speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of 
men is fully set in them to do evil.'* Don't 
mistake God. This delay to execute penalty 
is for your sake, to the end ye may repent 
and live. You sinned last year; but you live 
on this year. You sinned yesterday ; but you 
live on to-day. But don't be deceived; don't 
despise the riches of his goodness and forbear- 
ance and long-suffering, not knowing that the 
goodness of God is intended to lead you to 
repentance, lest you find at last that, after 
your own hardness and impenitent heart, you 
have treasured up unto yourself wrath against 
the day of wrath and revelation of the right- 
eous judgment of God. 



Regeneration, 99 



Chapter XI. 

REGENER A TION. 

REGENERATION is the impartation of 
spiritual life to the human soul. Web- 
ster says it is '^the new birth by the grace 
of God; that change by which the will and 
natural enmity of man to God and his law are 
subdued, and a principle of supreme love to 
God and his law is implanted in the heart." 
Watson says, '^Regeneration is a new birth; 
that work of the Holy Spirit by which we 
experience a change of heart." Scripture 
phrase conveying it is, ''Born again." "Born 
of God." "Born of the Spirit." "A new 
creature" — or creation. "Born from above." 
"Quickened." "Created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works. " "Christ in you." "Partakers 
of his holiness." "Partakers of the divine 
nature." The inculcation seems, therefore, to 
be, that regeneration is the gracious work of 
God in us, by which he imparts spiritual life 
to us by imparting himself to us, and dwell- 



loo Govs Method with Man. 

ing- and reigning in us. Pardon, you will 
remember, is an act done for us, by which our 
relation to the government is changed ; but 
which does not of itself affect our character. 
Regeneration, on the other hand, is a work 
wrought in us, and is often mentioned as a 
*Vchange of heart.'' 

This work, though entirely distinct from 
pardon, is wrought at the same time that par- 
don is bestowed; so that whoever is forgiven 
is also regenerated, or created anew. The 
regeneration of the heart of man is accom- 
plished by the incoming and indwelling of the 
Holy Spirit. Christ in you is the hope of 
glory. The Spirit of God, possessing and 
inspiring your heart, can alone bring you thor- 
oughly into line with God's will and word. 
Regenerating grace is what builds Christian 
character in man. 

Mere Moral Character is one thing, and 
Christian character is radically another thing. 
Moral character Consists in the possession of 
such virtues as are agreeable to the demands 
and supposed interests of good neighborhood. 
It therefore includes truth, chastit}^, temper- 
ance, honest)^, and in its higher demands, punc- 



Regeneration. ioi 

tuality, beneficence, and freedonn from tattling, 
profanity, and Sabbath-breaking. Morality, as 
such, is purely a superficial thing; never going 
beyond the deed to ask after the motive that 
prompted it. It does not demand that you 
shall not hate your brother ; but only that 
you shall not harm him. It does not require 
that you shall be chaste or temperate in your 
feelings ; but only that you shall not be 
drunken or debauched in your life. It forbids 
you to take what is your neighbor's, whether 
by stealth or fraud; but does not forbid you 
to covet it. In a word, the claims of moral- 
ity are met so long as evil mindedness do not 
express itself in deeds annoying or harmful. 

The motive for cultivating this type of 
character is commonly, perhaps universally, 
the desire to stand well with one's self and 
with his neighbors. A man is perpetually 
tormented who can not respect himself; and 
must find his refuge in the stoicism of an im- 
bruted nature, or in a return to the practice of 
virtue. Now Christianity, wherever it comes, 
erects a standard of morals; and men must 
conform to that standard, or forfeit the respect 
of those about them. The respect of a man's 



I02 GoD's Method with Man. 

compeers has a value for him in every light. 
It is conclusive of his comfort as a member 
of society. It decides the whole question of 
home. It has an incalculable cash value in 
all his business relations. A due amount of 
long-headedness therefore, with adequate self- 
control under the power of conscience, and 
the many helps we all have to a respectable 
life in a Christian land, suffices for the main- 
tenance of a type of character that seeks and 
deserves the praise of man. 

Value of Moral Character. Moral char- 
acter is cultivated mainly by will power under 
the dictum, to some extent, of conscience, 
with pride as the ultimate motive force. Its 
strength in any man is equal to the virtuous 
forces that may reside in his v.^ll, his educa- 
tion, and his habit. Such character has its 
value. It promotes the bliss of home. It is 
the condition of successful student life. It is 
the condition of successful commercial life. 
It is the condition of successful professional 
life. It is the gate to all those great trusts 
which communities and nations delight to be- 
stow on the men that are adjudged faithful, 
wise, and true. Besides, good moral principles 



Regenera tjon. 



103 



and well-adjusted habits of right living are of 
great value as a foundation on which to build 
practical Christian life. A man who has had 
a good Christian training, and has led a cor- 
rect and upright life, starts out at his con- 
version upon his Christian career with many 
points of advantage. On the other hand, the 
man whose life has been vile, whose associates 
have corrupted him, whose thought has run 
along the lowest channels, whose memory is 
stored with facts of debauchery and crime, is 
fearfully crippled for his heavenly race. His 
higher nature has been dwarfed by disuse, 
while his lower nature has been developed 
and strengthened by years of dishonorable 
or shameful practice, till his very blood is 
charged with an infernal fever that rages in 
all his veins, and clamors for the intoxicating 
and damning pleasures of sin. No parent 
can overestimate the practical value in these 
respects of correct training, and correct early 
habits for his child. 

An Affair of the Surface. But let us 
not be deceived. Mere moral character is not 
Christian character ; though Christian charac- 
ter includes all moral excellences both of heart 



I04 Gous Method with Man. 

and life. Character merely moral is, in its 
essential motives, wholly a surface affair. A 
man may keep the Sabbath, not because he 
cares a straw for the God of the Sabbath, but 
because he wants to be respected. He may 
tell the truth, because he wants to be believed 
next time. He may restrain himself, and 
preserve an appearance of calmness under 
opposition or insult, because he knows he 
will thus maintain the respect of bystanders, 
and put his enemy at disadvantage. He may 
deal honorably with you, because he means to 
retain you as a permanent customer. He may 
repay a loan promptly, because he knows he 
may wish to borrow again. Now, just so far 
as such motives act to produce a right line of 
conduct, by just so far does the conduct itself 
fail to evince a heart at all in sympathy with 
righteousness on its own account. 

Why he went to Church. Some years 
ago I spent a Sabbath in a certain town in 
New England. My host, on Monday morn- 
ing, took me through the extensive mercan- 
tile establishment of which himself was half 
owner. Talking with me as we walked about 
touching the matter of personal piety, he in- 



Re genera tion. 105 

formed me that he made no profession of 
rehgion, nor ever had made such profession. 
**But," said I, ''you seemed so much inter- 
ested in the services yesterday that I took it 
for granted you were a member of the Church." 
''No," said he, "not a member of the Church, 
though a regular attendant and supporter. 
The Methodist and Orthodox (Congregational) 
are the two principal Churches in the place ; 
my partner attends the Orthodox, and I the 
Methodist; and in that way we cultivate ac- 
quaintance in both societies; which we think 
helps our business." Now certainly no man 
can approve of such a motive for keeping 
the Sabbath and attending Church ; yet how 
much better is this than open desecration of 
the day, and neglect of all religious observ- 
ances. 

Practical neglect of divine aid in the culti- 
vation of character is fraught with danger. 
The man in this country who secures and main- 
tains what is known as high moral character 
does so by availing himself of the definite 
didactic teachings of the Scriptures, and the 
many wholesome and gracious forces that per- 
vade society, and invest all men who live in a 



io6 GoD's Method with Man, 

land of churches and Bibles. These forces, for 
the cultivation of character merely moral, are 
about equally available for believers and unbe- 
lievers. Yet moral unbelievers never seem 
to think of giving credit in any degree for 
w^hat they are to their God-given surround- 
ings. The heathen civilizations of former ages 
produced a few noble characters. Socrates, 
Aristides, Seneca, and Cicero stand as conspic- 
uous examples. Yet thousands of better men 
grow up around the Christian Church in every 
age. The boastful moralist, therefore, who 
names his own upright life before men as a 
reason for ignoring the claims of God upon 
him, repeats the ingratitude and rebellion of 
the son who, on account of his wealth, makes 
haste to proclaim his independence of the 
father who gave him all he has. Every moral 
man owes all he has and is to Christianity. 

What Jesus said. But I must not fail, 
before I dismiss the subject, to impress one 
other great and serious truth touching this 
matter of moral and Christian character. Such 
is the pride of the human heart, that men who 
are aware of their own good standing with 
their fellows are often among the last to yield 



Regeneration. 107 

to the demands of the Gospel by seeking for 
themselves regenerating grace. Jesus said to 
the moralists of his time, ''Publicans and har- 
lots go into the kingdom of God before you.'* 
It is matter of Gospel history that the common 
people heard Christ gladly, and that many of 
the vile and the lost came penitently to him 
and were forgiven and saved ; while the men of 
position and influence rejected him, pursued 
him, maligned him, plotted against him, and 
finally procured his death. The point, then, 
is, the Gospel offers extraordinary facilities to 
a man for the training of his powers into hab- 
its of practical goodness and social excellence, 
whether he accept its regenerating forces or 
not. But the man who, having been upborne 
by these kindly influences of the Gospel into 
an honorable life as a member of community, 
makes his honorable standing an excuse for 
rejecting Christ from his heart, does by such 
rejection exhibit the grossest ingratitude, and 
incur great guilt and danger. 

Christian Character. Now, in contra- 
distinction from all that has been said about 
character merely moral, let us look at charac- 
ter as affected by the regenerating grace of 



io8 GoD's Method with Man, 

God — Christian character. This latter exhib- 
its a well-adjusted life, springing naturally out 
of the heart as occupied and inspired by the 
Holy Spirit. ''Keep thy heart with all dili- 
gence; for out of it are the issues of life." 
The life naturally issues from the heart, as the 
stream from the fountain. Any external life, 
maintained above the secret aptitudes and 
inclinations of the heart, is an artificial and 
forced life. It is a brave thing to live such a 
life, provided a man's heart be corrupt, and 
by dint of a powerful will it may be done for 
a time; but it is exceedingly difficult to hold 
steadily to a course of practice out of harmony 
with the inclinations of the affectional nature; 
and as a matter of fact few men do it for any 
considerable time. It is the glory of the Gos- 
pel scheme that God does not require this arti- 
ficial life. He proposes that a right life shall 
come of gracious affections in the heart; and 
that a man shall do right, not because he fears 
to do wrong, but because he loves the Law- 
giver and the law. He would have nothing 
done by constraint ; but every thing willingly, 
freely, lovingly, gladly. In imparting regen- 
erating grace to the heart therefore, he lays 



Regenera tion. 109 

the foundation for practical excellence of life 
as a result to spring naturally from renewed 
affections. ''Make the tree good," said the 
Savior, ''then shall his fruit be good also." 

Christian character is thoroughly real. A 
Christian is at heart what he seems. He does 
right because he feels right — is right. His 
motives actual and apparent are the same. 
Grave errors are committed in estimating char- 
acter. Many think him the best man who 
struggles hai'dest to be good : whereas no man 
is possessed of virtue, at all to be trusted, till 
he gets beyond the struggle, to a point where 
evil is detested and shunned as distasteful, and 
good is loved and pursued for its own sake. 
We never trust a man who, as we know, keeps 
from dishonesty or theft by a struggle. The 
man who has to make an effort to go by a 
dram-shop without going in, is a man on 
whose continued sobriety you would hazard 
nothing; and he is two-thirds a thief who 
keeps his hands off other people's property 
only by dint of determination, pledges, and 
vows. He is the man of character whose 
nature is shocked at the thought of evil ; for 
whom it would be difficult and painful to do 



no GoD's Method with Man, 

wrong, and who finds in himself delightful 
facility for all things true and pure. 

No doubt deep conviction of sin by the 
power of the Holy Ghost is in itself adapted 
to produce a wholesome horror of sin. When 
repentance supervenes this sentiment is in- 
creased with its progress. The effort to with- 
draw the affections from the Avorld, and to 
dedicate the soul to God, helps the process 
forward under the leadings and teachings of 
grace. But when God measurably communi- 
cates his own nature to the soul, as he does 
in the grace of regeneration, so that the new- 
born child of God can say, ^'Christ is in me 
the hope of glory," the foundation for all 
excellence of life is well laid in that soul. 

Varieties. The great fact of the regener- 
ation of the human soul by the power of the 
Holy Ghost must be asserted to be the same 
in all cases of human experience ; but the 
variations of emotional experience connected 
with it are without limit. No man passes 
through exercises just like those of any other 
man. It is also true that no man is led into 
the experience of grace precisely as he ex- 
pected to be led. 



Regeneration, hi 

A Partial Salvation. The grace of regen- 
eration, while it imparts spiritual life to the 
soul, and thereby quickens the conscience, 
elevates the affections, and rectifies and en- 
thrones the will, does not so purify the nat- 
ure as that there are not occasional interior 
experiences of remaining proclivity to sin ; 
especially the sin to which former habit, or 
temperament, or peculiar surroundings may 
expose one. Without dwelling at all on this 
fact here, it may be in place to say that the 
statement I have given is indorsed by univer- 
sal experience in the Church, and by the 
standard writers of all Christendom for a thou- 
sand years. The duty and privilege of seeking 
and obtaining deliverance from these remains 
of the carnal mind, by the complete renew- 
ing of the Holy Ghost, will be considered fur- 
ther on. 



112 GOD'S Me thod with Man, 



Chapter XIL 

ADOPTION. 

AT the same time that God pardons and 
regenerates a penitent behever he also 
adopts him into his family and makes him 
child of God, and thus heir of God and joint 
heir with Christ. Of this stupendous proceed- 
ing the recipient of the grace is presently, and 
often immediately, notified by the direct testi- 
mony of the Holy Spirit. This testimony is 
never a vocal utterance, but is a divine con- 
viction and persuasion wrought in the mind 
that I, even I, so late a rebel against God, am 
for Jesus' sake pardoned and accepted of him, 
and regarded as a member of the household 
of God. The w^itness of adoption implies the 
witness of pardon and conversion. The sensa- 
tion is sometimes that which is recognized as 
*' burning love.*' David expressed the same 
when he said, *^My heart was hot within me; 
while I was musing the fire burned." More 
frequently, I think, it is a simple sense of 



Adoption. 113 

child-like clinging to God ; a feeling that makes 
one desire to call him ''Father," and to repeat 
.the title with tender emphasis. The Scripture 
phrase is — ''Ye have received the Spirit of 
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our 
spirit that we are the children of God ; and 
if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint 
heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with 
him, that we may be also glorified together." 
Again, the phrase is — "that we might receive 
the adoption of sons. And because ye are 
sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his 
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." 
Thus, we see, the doctrine that the Spirit 
witnesses to our sonship is repeatedly averred 
in the New Testament. It is not stated in 
any formula exactly similar, that he testifies 
to any other fact of our gracious state. Some 
have hence inferred that he does not ; but I 
think the inference without warrant. i Cor. 
2: 12. "Now we have received, not the 
spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of 
God ; that we might know the things that are 
freely given to us of God." This seems to be 
a plain statement that the Holy Spirit bears 

8 



1 14 GoD's Method with Man. 

witness to all the work of God in our hearts, 
whatever that work may be. It is recorded 
of Stephen (Acts 6 : 5) and of Barnabas (Acts 
1 1 : 24) that they were men full of the Holy 
Ghost. Now to be filled with the Holy Ghost 
is certainly a well defined fact of a man's gra- 
cious state. This fact, in the cases noted, was 
evidently obvious to others, and hence the 
record. It is preposterous to suppose that a 
man's spiritual state may be obvious to his 
friends, and yet not a matter of conscious- 
ness with himself. John says (i John 4 : 13), 
*' Hereby we know that we dwell in him, and 
he in us, because he hath given us of his 
Spirit.'' The fact to which the Spirit is here 
said to testify is, that we dwell in God, and 
God in us. The witness that Abel had (see 
Heb. 11: 4) was that he was righteous ; and 
the witness that Enoch had (see verse 5) was 
that he pleased God. From these citations it 
seems obvious that the Holy Spirit bears wit- 
ness not only to the fact of our adoption, but 
to the state of grace we are in, whatever that 
state may be. 

The Holy Spirit, in giving you the witness 
of your adoption into the family of God, and 



Adoption. 115 

of your present spiritual status, performs, in 
a considerable part, his office as Comforter. 
*'Even the devils are subject to us through 
thy name," said the disciples. ^' Rejoice not in 
this," said Jesus, '' but rejoice that your names 
are written in heaven;" a figurative method 
of saying, rejoice in your sonship with God. 
Why so Little Comfort. The Holy Spirit 
is a tender spirit ; not punctilious, never watch- 
ing for our halting, indeed ; but easily grieved 
into a withdrawal of his precious testimony, 
by any voluntary indulgence in wrong tem- 
pers or overt acts of sin, however trivial in 
the sight of men. These comparatively sHght 
evils, that are allowed to creep into the tem- 
pers and practices of some Christians, are the 
real cause of their comfortless lives. They 
are so brief and so alternated with penitent 
sorrow and aspiration after God and a better 
life, that the soul does not seem at any time 
utterly outcast from God, nor without many 
marks of a gracious state. Still there is little 
comfort and no progress ; but a see-saw life 
of down and up, in which one gets now a 
gleam of joy, and now sinks with a heavy 
heart under the power of the tempter. 



ii6 GoD's Method with Man, 



Chapter XIII. 

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 

WHEREVER the blessings aforemen- 
tioned are given, there Christian char- 
acter is instituted and the Christian Hfe inau- 
gurated. But though Christian character be 
instituted, it is not completed; and the vast 
field of Christian progress is before us. God 
does not entirely sanctify a soul when he re- 
generates it; in other words, the impartation 
of spiritual life to a human soul does not 
achieve the cleansing away of all defilement 
from that soul. Life is one thing, purity 
is another. First born, then washed. This 
is an order familiar enough. And the com- 
plete cleansing of the soul from all the gross- 
ness of evil affection by the water of life 
ought so soon to follow the new birth as in 
every case to illustrate the pertinence of the 
phrase, ^^the washing of regeneration and 
renewing of the Holy Ghost." The Christian 
life can not be retained without progress. 



Christian Progress. 117 

Progress in grace is several times called 
growth ; and hence it has been insisted on by- 
many that the only advancement a Christian 
ever makes after conversion is by the insensi- 
ble development and enlargement of his relig- 
ious character, in strict and complete analogy 
with the growth of plants and animals. I say, 
'' insensible;" for no person was ever sensible 
at any given moment of the present fact of a 
physical growth within himself. This view 
ignores and contradicts, in a very disastrous 
way, the real nature and order of Christian 
progress. Plants and animals grow by the ac- 
tion of forces of assimilation inhering in them- 
selves. A Christian has no inherent spiritual 
life, and makes progress only by successive 
impartations of the divine life and vigor to his 
soul, naturally dead. 

The Genius of the Gospel is, that it leads 
men into grace, and then on in the life of 
faith by distinct steps. Conviction for sin is 
commonly a sudden, often a startling event. 
''Struck under conviction," was the common 
phrase of our fathers. ''Repent" is, in its 
nature, an instant demand. ''Break off thy 
sins by righteousness," is the injunction; not 



ii8 Goas Method with Man, 

taper them off, but have done with them sud- 
denly, squarely, now. Repentance is an act of 
the present. Faith is an act of the present. 
Pardon, regeneration, and adoption are in their 
nature instantaneous acts of divine clemency 
and grace. And so, as the soul moves on in 
grace it moves by definite and dated steps. 
In a ministry of more than forty years I do not 
remember to have conversed with a ** grow- 
ing " Christian on this subject whose testi- 
mony did not indorse this view. Godly men 
have uniformly told me that they had reached 
their present status as the result of distinct 
and successive victories, every one of which 
had its well-defined experience of heart-search- 
ing, humiliation, dedication, and baptism by 
the Holy Spirit. Such, I beg to say, has been 
my own experience from the first. 

Is it not true that the nature of Christian 
progress or growth makes this order neces- 
sary? It is of the nature of acquisition by 
gift, of new revelations of God to the soul, of 
victories over a foe. None of these come by 
imperceptible degrees ; each has its date as a 
definite transaction. 

This view of Christian progress, I am aware 



Christian Progress. i 19 

has been stoutly opposed ; and I have no in- 
terest in sustaining it, except from the con- 
viction that its inculcation is of very great 
importance, if not vitally necessary, to suc- 
cess in promoting in the Church the higher 
Christian experiences. It seems to me, also, 
that the principle is equally important in pro- 
moting primary experiences. 

A Magnificent Church v^ithout any 
**Now. " There is a Christian denomination 
in the land, whose standards define justifica- 
tion and regeneration in words tantamount to 
those employed by other evangelical bodies. 
They are, as a class, an intelligent, educated 
people, with an able clergy, and abundant re- 
sources; yet the number of persons brought 
to God by their teaching in one hundred years 
is small to a marvel. Why is this ? I know no 
reason for it, except that there is no ^*now" 
in their preaching. They ignore the genius 
of the Gospel for instantaneousness, and so 
fail to insist on present repentance, instant 
surrender, and faith in Jesus for salvation noiv. 

Opposing Views. So long as a man ex- 
pects his spiritual blessings to come to him 
only by imperceptible degrees, he is steadily 



I20 GoD's Method with Man. 

and, as I think, necessarily baffled. Men talk, 
and in many cases seem very fond of talking, 
of growing in grace in this way. Yet after a 
score of years the confession is often made 
that there has been in all that time no real 
progress perceptible to themselves. Still it 
is remarkable with what tenacity many per- 
sons, even these same persons, cling to the 
theory. 

Leaven in the Wrong Lump. To fortify 
themselves in this theory, some persons have 
recourse to the parable of the leaven hid in 
three measures of meal till the whole was 
leavened. (See Matt. 13: 33.) This parable, 
it is contended, teaches the gradual working 
of grace in the human heart until the Avhole 
nature is brought under its influence. I reply, 
that the parable has not, and can not have, 
any application to the progress of grace or its 
method of working in the individual heart ; 
since it is not true that one part or faculty of 
the human soul receives grace and communi- 
cates it to another part. The reference of the 
parable is to the spread of the Gospel in the 
earth, from one human being to another : for 
it is true that just so soon as a man becomes 



Christian Progress, 121 

a Christian, he finds himself instinctively 
moved to bring another to Christ. Thus it 
is that the Gospel spreads from one heart 
to another, from one community to another, 
from one nation to another. And thus it is 
to spread until the whole lump is leavened — 
the whole world converted. Correctly inter- 
preted and applied, this parable is one of the 
most glorious utterances that ever issued from 
the lips of Jesus; for it asserts the all-con- 
quering power, and prophesies the universal 
prevalence of the Gospel of the Son of God. 
But perverted and misapplied by the falge 
gloss that has been put upon it, it does not 
possess even the dignity of a common truth. 
Some have gone so far in their opposition 
to the teaching here insisted on as to seek to 
pour contempt upon it by declaring that it 
makes Christian progress the progress of a 
leap-frog! Suppose this to be conceded: what 
then ? It is only an illustration of the princi- 
ple, nearly universal, that extremes meet ; 
and that the highest ever contains in itself 
some incident of the lowest. The bottom of 
the musical scale is '*do," and the top is 
**do.*' A line projected to the east meets 



122 GoD's Method with Man. 

the line projected to the west. The woman 
at the bottom of society, or below society, is 
known only by her given name : no one knows 
her family name. Ascending to the very top 
of society you find a woman whose name is 
Victoria. Victoria who ? Her husband is 
Albert. Albert who? Take hold of a piece 
of heated iron, and you wound your hand: 
take hold of a piece of iron in an Arctic Win- 
ter, and you wound your hand. In each case 
the wound is called a burn; and the medical 
treatment for the two cases is precisely alike. 
Have it, then, that the progress of the Chris- 
tian is the progress of the leap-frog. It is also 
the progress or growth of this nation from 
thirteen States to thirty-eight, each new State 
having its own birthday; and the same man- 
ner of progress is the march of Grant to Rich- 
mond, and of Alexander to India, as well as 
of the Christian to heaven. Nor can low com- 
parison degrade any of these, more than hu- 
man audacity might hope to degrade the flight 
of an archangel by claiming that his progress 
is that of a vulture or an owl. 

The Second Blessing. Let us further con- 
sider this subject of growth in grace, in its 



Christian Progress, 123 

due connection with the successive religious 
states into which Christians enter who '*go 
on." In God's order, the first great blessing 
after conversion is entire sanctification. This 
should be reached very soon after the convert 
has entered on his new life. I have found it 
much easier to lead a new convert of a few 
weeks old in grace into this precious experi- 
ence than to lead old professors into it. Our 
fathers had it right when they called per- 
fect love ^' the second blessing.'' Charles Wes- 
ley*s phrase is, ''Speak the second time, *Be 
clean ' " This grace is necessary to complete 
the Christian character, and thus fully qualify 
its subject for Christian work, and for shed- 
ding the clear and steady light of a holy life 
upon the world. To dissociate it from con- 
version in our thought and teaching by a 
long intervening period is, I am convinced, 
exceedingly unfortunate and hurtful. Grace 
has not the complete and sole occupancy of 
the heart till sin is all cast out by perfect love. 
And while any forces remain in the heart an- 
tagonistic to grace, the Christian is not at all 
adequately prepared for the race or tlie con- 
flict. In the nature of things, therefore, there 



124 Goas Method with Man, 

is likely to be little progress in grace till the 
deliverance from sin be complete. 

I do not doubt there are many persons who 
sincerely question the above statement, and 
believe their own experiences to be a suffi- 
cient refutation of it. Nothing, it seems to 
me, is easier than for a man to make a mis- 
take on this question of his own growth in 
grace. Let us consider this subject just here 
with a little care. 

Twenty Years in the Church. To facili- 
tate our inquiry after the truth touching it, 
let us fix upon some Christian, say of twenty 
years' standing in the Church, who has lived 
those years confessedly without the enjoyment 
of perfect love. Now pastors tell me, and my 
experience as a pastor tallies Avith the state- 
ment, that not more than a small fraction, 
often as low as one-fourth, of their members 
appear to be maintaining a healthy spiritual 
life, such as to make them available for steady 
Church work. Suppose our subject to be, not 
an average Christian, but one of this small 
minority of the more excellent ones. He 
joined the Church at twenty years of age, 
and he is forty now. Immediately on becom- 



Christian Progress. 125 

ing a Church member, he addressed himself 
to Christian reading and to Christian work. 
He steadily attended Church services and so- 
cial meetings, and has continued to do so. 
He has for twenty years been a steady Sab- 
bath-school worker. He married two years 
after his conversion, and has maintained fam- 
ily prayer from the time of his marriage. He 
has studied the Bible with some care, and has 
become adequately acquainted with the his- 
tory, doctrines, and discipline of his Church. 
He has borne a part in the social meetings, 
and has learned to be an effective worker in 
promoting Church interests. Now nothing is 
more clear than that this man has become a 
valuable Church member, worth to her many 
times more than he was at the beginning. He 
has learned the theory. He has learned the 
trade, and knows how to do Church work. 
He can pray better, exhort better, counsel 
better, and teach better — better by far than 
he could twenty years ago. But the question 
is, how much has he grown in grace ? He is 
conscious that he has been improving in all 
the facts stated above; and nothing is more 
natural than that he should conclude in all 



126 GoD's Method with Man. 

candor, that therefore he must have made 
great progress in grace. 

But has he Grown in Grace? I sub- 
mit that these facts are not conclusive of the 
case, and that the truth as to his growth in 
grace can only be ascertained by pressing our 
inquiries touching another class of facts. Is 
his peace of mind deeper and more constant 
than it was twenty years ago? Is his con- 
science more tender? Is he more afraid of sin? 
Is he more benevolent according to his means? 
Has he greater self-control? Is he more 
marked by meekness and quietness of spirit? 
Is he more patient, more prayerful, more for- 
giving, more heavenly minded? Does he 
bear opposition and contradiction better? Is 
he more zealous for the salvation of men? 
Has he borne misfortune with more equanim- 
ity of spirit in later than he did in earlier 
years? Does he converse more freely with 
wife and children than he used to on the sub- 
ject of his own and their personal reHgious 
state? Do the truths of the Bible impress 
him and penetrate him more deeply than they 
did? Does he mourn less over temporal losses, 
and rejoice more over spiritual gains? Has 



Christian Progress, 127 

he greater spiritual light on the deep things 
of God? In a word, has his character been 
growing less and less earthy, more and more 
heavenly? When these questions, and others 
their like, are answered, the question will be 
answered, whether this exceptionally active 
Christian has in twenty years made any nota- 
ble progress that deserves to be called ' 'growth 
in grace.'' My own impression is, that the 
patient examination of many cases, taken in- 
discriminately from even the better class of 
Christian livers, will but confirm the observa- 
tion that in God's order the first great bless- 
ing after conversion is entire santification. 

With this view the language of the Church 
seems to be in full harmony when she says to 
her ministers, ** Observe, it is not your busi- 
ness only to preach so many times, and to 
take care of this or that society, but to save 
as many as you can; to bring as many sin- 
ners as you can to repentance, and with all 
your power to build them up in that holiness 
without which they can not see the Lord." 
From this language of the Discipline it is 
clear that the Church regards it as the duty 
of the minister, first, to bring souls to Christ, 



128 GoD's Method with Man, 

and, secondly, to exert all his power to build 
them up in holiness. 

Unequal Vitality at Birth. I judge it 
proper at this point to call attention to a fact 
that must be familiar to all Christian workers ; 
namely, that as in nature, so in grace, of chil- 
dren born, some have very much more of vital- 
ity than others. In either line the facts of any 
given case can not always be fully explained 
or accounted for ; though it may be set down 
as a general rule in both, that healthy mothers 
bear healthy children. The real spiritual con- 
dition of the Church seems generally to be 
reflected with some accuracy in the new life 
of the persons brought to God by her labors 
and prayers. This, however, can hold only as 
a general rule, admitting many exceptions. 
The immediate cause of the specially vigor- 
ous life of some converts seems, in most cases, 
to be thoroughness in the preliminary pro- 
cesses. Where conviction is pungent and re- 
lenting deep, where there is great brokenness 
of heart for sin, hearty and complete renunci- 
ation of it, breadth of view touching God's 
claims, and comprehensiveness of self-devote- 
ment to Christ, there will commonly be dis- 



Christian Progress. 129 

covered, when the seeker becomes a convert, 
a large impartation to the soul of life from 
God. 

Great varieties of peculiar characteristics 
are found to be developed among persons 
truly regenerated. This is attributable partly 
to the facts stated above, while it is partly 
owing, no doubt, to varieties of temperament, 
education, former habits, surroundings, etc. 
In conversion, however, there is given to all 
peace with God, love to God, love to the 
brotherhood, hope of heaven, power of vic- 
tory over sin, a sense of filial relation with 
God, more or less of joy in God, zeal for the 
salvation of men, a sense of fellowship with 
Christians, and such a general change of char- 
acter, relation, and aim, as might be expressed 
in — '*I feel that I am a new man, and am 
entering on a new life." 

ZiNZENDORFiSM. But whilc all this is true, 
it has been the uniform experience of believ- 
ers in every age that regenerating grace does 
not impart the full and complete deliverance of 
the mind from sinful proclivity. In this con- 
fession of the remains of carnality after con- 
version, all Christian sects have been agreed, 

9 



130 GoD's Method with Man. 

with the single minute and brief exception in 
which, during the last century, Count Zinzen- 
dorf inoculated the Moravians, and through 
them a portion of the followers of John Wes- 
ley, with the contrary doctrine that entire 
purity is imparted to the soul in the fact of 
regeneration. The heresy was stoutly op- 
posed by Mr. Wesley, who drew off from the 
Moravians on account of it, and it was soon 
abandoned by the Moravians themselves, as 
being obviously contradictory of the facts of 
current experience in their own minds. True, 
a few individuals in this country have in late 
years made attempts to resuscitate the doc- 
trines of Zinzendorf; but they have not suc- 
ceeded even in getting the ear of the Church 
to their teachings; and one of them — perhaps 
the ablest thinker and writer of them all* — has 
recently retracted fully, freely, and publicly, 
his long-cherished error. This he did for the 
best of all reasons, namely, that after having 
opposed the doctrine of entire sanctification 
as a separate and distinct experience for more 
than thirty years, he at length sought and 
found the blessing himself. 

■^The late Francis Hodgson, D. D., of Philadelphia. 



Christian Progress. 131 

The Mixed State. There are bodies of 
Christians who deny in their standards that 
the taint of sin in our nature can be practi- 
cally removed by grace till the hour and arti- 
cle of death ; but no body of Christians (if we 
except the few Moravians under Zinzendorf, 
noticed above) ever held that it is removed at 
conversion. It is true, in some cases, that dur- 
ing the raptures that succeed conversion the 
subject is not aware of the existence in him- 
self of any depraved appetite or disposition ; 
and because he does not just then feel sinful 
desire, he is liable to conclude that his inter- 
nal foes are all destroyed ; but he is never 
long in learning the necessity that still exists 
of completeness in the work of his interior 
salvation. He is wonderfully humbled from 
his old self-sufficiency; but pride still often 
stirs, and is pleased with a flattering word. 
He has a new equanimity, that attracts the 
attention of those about him to the change 
grace has made; yet it is difficult for him 
always to repress exhibitions of petulance. 
He has peace with God through faith, and a 
good degree of rest in his love; but he knows 
nothing of that complete deliverance from 



132 GoD's Method with Man, 

anxiety and solicitude touching tHe future of 
his Hfe and fortunes, that the entire santifica- 
tion of his nature shall by and by bring him. 
His love, of the brethren is sincere ; but is not 
of strength sufficient to brook slights, injuries, 
and indignities, and love still. He fully in- 
tends to subordinate to Christ all he has and 
is; yet he often finds himself more absorbed 
in some enterprise of his own than in the in- 
terests of the kingdom of God. He wishes 
that the cause of God may prosper, and labors 
to that end ; but his wish is stronger manifold 
whenever the said prosperity is to bring spe- 
cial honor to himself. He fully intends to 
devote himself to a life of godliness ; but finds 
at times a strange sympathy in his nature with 
temptation to some of the sins of his former 
Hfe. 

A Young Christian in a Dilemma. Now 
should a young Christian who finds the diffi- 
culties and embarrassments involved in the 
above statements go for advice to a man who 
holds that the taint of sin in our nature can 
not be practically removed till the hour of 
death, how discouraging to all the better aspi- 
rations of his nature it must be to be told, 



Christian Progress. 133 

''These remains of pride, perverseness, and 
selfishness are your cross. Here is your war- 
fare. This is your necessary discipline. There 
is no deliverance for you this side of death.'' 
Suppose, then, that in his discouragement he 
turn away from his Calvinistic teacher to a 
man whose theory is that there is no sin in a 
heart truly converted. Here he must be told 
that the inward difficulties of which he com- 
plains are proof, either that he never was con- 
verted, or that he is backslidden, and is now 
a sinner. Here we see how these cruel per- 
versions of the order of God lay their heavy 
-hands upon the struggling soul. This young 
Christian is just now in a condition to be led 
on into the enjoyment of perfect love. In- 
deed, he is now powerfully convicted for it, 
whether he know it himself or not. But just 
here Calvin tells him he never can have it; 
and Zinzendorf tells him the very fact that 
he feels his need of it proves that he has no 
grace at all. These are the men who grieve 
those whom God has not grieved ; who put 
darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter 
for sweet and sweet for bitter. **Alas!" says 
the anxious seeker of light, **I have deceived 



134 GoD's Method with Man, 

myself. My fancied conversion is all a delu- 
sion. I must go back to my proper place 
as a penitent.'' But on second thought, he 
knows not what to do ; for he is equally con- 
scious on the one hand, that he loves God and 
spiritual things, and on the other that there 
are sinful affections remaining in his heart. 

The true doctrine of the Bible can alone 
deliver such a one from his sad dilemma. 
Let him be addressed as a brother beloved, a 
child of God, a saint, a new creature in Christ 
Jesus. Take him by the hand, ye men of 
God : he is your fellow. Let his pastor look 
into his eyes and say, '^ Grace be unto you, 
and peace, from God our Father, and from the 
Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always 
on your behalf, for the grace of God which is 
given you by Jesus Christ;" just as Paul ad- 
dressed the Corinthians whom he exhorts, as 
not being yet entirely clean; ''Having, there- 
fore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us 
cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the 
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear 
of God." 

The two points ought to be set forth in our 
Christian teaching with frequency and clear- 



Christian Progress, 135 

ness: first, that regenerating grace does not 
effect the complete purification of the heart; 
and second, that it is the privilege of the be- 
liever, even the beginner in the Christian life, 
so soon after conversion as he shall become 
aware of the remaining corruptions of his na- 
ture, to seek and obtain entire sanctification. 
Our people must not be allowed to conclude 
that because they feel the stirrings of unholy- 
affection they therefore are not Christians ; 
nor to conclude that because regenerating 
grace did not wholly remove depraved desire, 
therefore they must consent to battle with it 
through life, without the possibility of vic- 
tory. 



136 GoD's Method with Man. 



Chapter XIV. 

ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION-^WHAT IT IS. 

WHAT is the state of grace which is 
called Entire Sanctification ? I answer 
for the present, it is obviously that state to 
which Paul prayed that the Thessalonians 
might come, when he said, '*And the very 
God of peace sanctify you w^hoUy ; and I pray 
God your whole spirit and soul and body be 
preserved blameless unto the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth 
you, who also will do it." To sanctify is to 
set apart to holy uses. Again, to sanctify is 
to recognize or proclaim the sanctity of an 
object. Finally, to sanctify is to purify and 
prepare for holy uses. When a believer is 
entirely sanctified, or sanctified wholly, the 
term denoting the experience is evidently 
used in the sense last named; so that the 
entire sanctification of the believer is his 
complete purification. Entire sanctification is 
therefore entire cleanness. 



Sanctification—What it is, 137 

Perfection. Let us now look at the word 
Perfection. ''Therefore leaving the principles 
of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto 
perfection.'' Perfection in what? Certainly 
not perfection of learning, or accomplish- 
ments; but perfection of Christian character: 
perfection in holiness. What is this? ''Let 
us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the 
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear 
of God." To be cleansed from all filthiness 
of the flesh, all the sins which have their 
occasion in your physical nature, and to be 
cleansed from all filthiness of the spirit, all the 
sins which have their occasion in your spirit- 
ual nature, is to perfect holiness in the fear of 
God. Therefore, perfect hoHness is complete 
purification. Perfect holiness is therefore en- 
tire cleanness. 

With this agree the words of the Lord by 
Ezekiel. ' ' Then will I sprinkle clean water 
upon you, and ye shall be cPean: from all 
your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I 
cleanse you. A new heart also will I give 
you, and a new spirit will I put within you: 
and I will take away the stony heart out of 
your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. 



138 GoD's Method WITH Man. 

* 

And I will put my Spirit within you, and 
cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall 
keep my judgments, and do them." Here 
again, the characteristic fact is cleanness. 

The word '^ clean'' and the equivalent word 
'' pure," with their derivatives, are the words 
principally used in all the Old Testament 
Scriptures to indicate the complete separation 
of God's people from the world, and their 
entire devotion to him ; so that moral and cer- 
emonial purity are moral and ceremonial holi- 
ness every-where. Ceremonial cleanness and 
cleansing are the great incident of the Mosaic 
economy; and the terms habitually in use 
among the people to signify rightness. of char- 
acter are precisely those used in the law. 
The book of Job, that dates before the law, 
has many passages indicative that the com- 
mon religious thought in his day ran in the 
same grooves. ''For thou," said Zophar to 
Job, ''hast said [to God], I am clean in thine 
eyes." Job says, "Who can bring a clean 
thing out of an unclean? Not one." Eliphaz 
says, "What is man that he should be clean, 
and he that is born of a woman, that he should 
be righteous? Behold he putteth no trust in 



Sanctification—What it is. 139 

his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in 
his sight : how much more abominable and 
filthy is man, which drinketh in iniquity like 
water?" So in the time of Job and of the 
giving of the law, the idea of holiness was 
cleanness. 

Isaiah and the rest employ similar phrase: 
'' Wash you, make you clean." *'Be ye clean 
that bear the vessels of the Lord." *' Create 
in me a clean heart." '*Who shall ascend 
into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand 
in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, 
and a pure heart." So in the days of David 
and the prophets, the representative term for 
holiness was cleanness. And after an interim 
of seven hundred years, from Isaiah to the 
times of Christ, the phraseology is found 
to be the same. ** Blessed are the pure in 
heart." *^ Ye are not all clean." ''Now ye 
are clean through the word which I have spo- 
ken unto you." ''Christ loved the Church 
and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify 
and cleanse it by the washing of water by the 
word, that he might present it to himself a 
glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, 
or any such thing ; but that it should be holy 



140 GoD's Method with Man, 

and without blemish/' *' Cleanse your hands, 
ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double 
minded/' '' He is faithful and just to forgive 
us our sins, and to cleanse^ us from all unright- 
eousness." *'The blood of Jesus Christ his 
Son cleanseth us from all sin/' ^^He that 
hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even 
as he is pure." ^'He gave himself for us, 
that he might redeem us from all iniquity, 
and purify unto himself a peculiar people." 

Charity — Perfect Love. The grace of 
entire sanctification or heart purity is set forth 
by Paul under the title charity or love; and 
by John under that of perfect love: both evi- 
dently intending by the terms they entploy, 
the measure of love that excludes all con- 
trary affections, and maintains complete sway 
in the soul. Paul gives the traits of entire 
sanctification under the name charity with 
great accuracy (i Cor. 13: 4-7): *' Charity 
suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth 
not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed 
up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh 
not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh 
no evil ; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth 
in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all 



San CTi PICA tion — Wha t it is. 141 

fhings, hopeth all things, endureth all things.'' 
And John declares (i John 4: 17): ''Herein 
is our love made perfect, that we may have 
boldness in the day of judgment: because as 
he is, so are we in this world:" a very beau- 
tiful way of saying that perfect love completes 
the image of Christ in the soul. Paul and 
John harmonize in the idea of Christian char- 
acter unalloyed. Love is the basal fact in a 
Christian heart; and when love is purified 
from alloy of selfishness and vileness, so that 
it exists in its completeness of purity and 
power, the whole character is upborne into 
the pilgrim's Beulah — the perpetual sunlight 
of God's smile, where are Summer, flowers, 
and fruits, with the golden gates hard by. 

Analyzing these views of Paul and John, 
we are brought back, as before, to the idea of 
grace in the heart, existing and reigning, to 
the exclusion of all that is opposed to grace. 
But whatever is opposed to grace is sin; and 
sin is filthiness. The absence of filthiness is 
cleanness. Therefore, to have perfect love is 
the same as to be sanctified wholly, or to per- 
fect holiness in the fear of God. 

Holiness. If we take the term holiness 



142 GoD's Method WITH Man. 

itself, it will bring us back to the same idea 
of purity. Worcester defines *'holy" as 
**pure in heart, free from sin, immaculate/' 
And Webster defines it, ^^free from sinful 
affections, pure, irreproachable." Every-where 
in the Bible the word is charged with the 
idea of complete freedom from defilement and 
intense opposition to it. Isaiah's vision in 
the temple is in point, and I quote it (Isa. 6: 
1-7): ''In the year that King Uzziah died I 
saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high 
and lifted up, and his train [like that of a 
comet, I suppose] filled the temple [covered 
all the floor of the temple as a carpet of 
golden light]. Above it stood the seraphim; 
each one had six wings: with twain he cov- 
ered his face, and with twain he covered his 
feet, and with twain he did fly. And one 
cried unto another, and said. Holy, holy, 
holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth 
is full of his glory. And the posts of the 
door moved at the vpice of him that cried, 
and the house was filled with smoke [incense]. 
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; 
because I am a man of unclean lips, and I 
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean 



Sanctifica tion — Wha t it is. 1 43 

lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the 
Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim 
unto me, having a Hve coal in his hand, which 
he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; 
and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, ''Lo, 
this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity 
is taken away, and thy sin purged." 

This exalted and wonderful passage teaches 
this, that when Isaiah saw God in his holiness 
he was instantly overwhelmed with a sense of 
his own contrasted vileness or uncleanness; on 
the principle that the mind instinctively com- 
pares or contrasts itself with the character it 
beholds. HoHness in God, then, is that which 
intensely contrasts and antagonizes unclean- 
ness in man. Therefore holiness brings us to 
the same idea as do the other terms of Scrip- 
ture, namely, cleanness or purity. 

The term ''Perfect.'' The word more 
used in Scripture than any other to set forth 
character fully approved of God, is '* per- 
fect, " with its derivatives. This is the last 
word which prudent theologians would have 
chosen, no doubt. I objected to it long as 
a word unsuitable for use to indicate purity of 
heart. At length I made a thorough exami- 



144 GoD's Method with Man. 

nation of the Scriptures, and was surprised to 
find that in more than sixty instances they 
employ it in relation to human character 
under the operations of grace; many times, 
evidently, with specific reference to our com- 
plete deliverance from sin through Christ. 
Accordingly, nearly all the early writers on 
the subject of the entire sanctification of the 
soul gave their works the title, *' Christian 
Perfection.'' This is undoubtedly the phrase 
to be employed when we speak of the doc- 
trine of the entire deliverance from depraved 
action of the human mind, produced by the 
continued indwelling of the Holy Spirit. At 
the same time, the word '* perfection '' is not 
at all the word to be used by any man in 
speaking of his own experience. I know of 
but one instance of its use in the Bible in the 
way here discouraged. This is in Phil. 3: 15, 
where Paul speaks of himself jointly with such 
members of the Philippian Church as were 
''perfect;" and says, ''Let us, therefore, as 
many as be perfect, be thus minded;" namely, 
cultivate the aspiration for martyrdom, as he 
had just been saying he did. I hope the 
circumstance that Paul did., once in his life, 



Sanctifica tion — Wha t it is. 1 45 

indirectly employ the word *' perfect" in allu- 
sion to his gracious state, will not induce us 
^o appropriate the term when we confess 
'Christ as a complete Savior. 

Yes, numerous as are the imperfections of 
every living man, and no man is more alive to 
his own imperfections than he who really enjoys 
perfect love, this word *^ perfect'' is eminently 
tJte word to be employed when, speaking doc- 
trinally and in the abstract, we wish to state 
with accuracy the point to which a soul is 
brought by being sanctified wholly. That is 
perfect which is complete. So, men talk of 
perfecting a piece of work; of perfecting the 
railroad connection between two points; of 
perfecting the harmony of an oratorio ; of per- 
fecting the healing of an amputated limb; of 
perfecting a purchaser's title to lands. That 
is perfect which is complete — finished. When 
grace has wrought in the heart, to the extir- 
pation of every sinful affection, every unholy 
desire, the work of deliverance is a finished 
work; salvation is completed, and the heart 
IS made perfect in love. He is a perfect man 
in Christ Jesus, in the Bible sense, in whose 
soul the work of salvation from sin is thus 

lO 



146 GoD's Method with Man, 

completed. Taking this meaning of perfect, 
therefore, there is no word besides that ex- 
presses with equal accuracy the state of en- 
tire sanctification. 

Again, that is perfect which has all that is 
proper to it, and has nothing else. It is com- 
mon for the doctor in attendance to report 
**a perfect child;" and he is never misunder- 
stood; all know he means, there is no part 
lacking, there is no excrescence. Precisely 
in this sense is the word used in Lev. 22: 21- 
23: *^And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of 
peace offerings unto the Lord, to accomplish 
his vow, or a freewill offering in beeves or 
sheep, it shall be perfect to be accepted; 
there shall be no blemish therein. Blind, or 
broken, or maimed, or having a wen, or 
scurvy, or scab: ye shall not offer these unto 
the Lord, nor make an offering by fire of 
them unto the Lord. Either a bullock or a 
lamb that hath any thing superfluous or lack- 
ing in his parts shall not be accepted when 
offered for a vow." 

That, then, is a perfect animal **that hath 
nothing superfluous or lacking in his parts;" 
and that is a perfect heart before God which 



Sanctification — What it is. 147 

has all the graces of the Holy Spirit, and has 
no temper or affection contrary thereto — in- 
congruous therewith. This, again, is complete 
deliverance, complete salvation from sin; and 
he whose nature is the subject of it, is a per- 
fect man in Christ Jesus, by virtue of the 
continual presence in him of the Holy Spirit, 
who possesses, inspires, impels, and rules him. 
The reader will note that thus far entire 
sanctification has been treated rather as a neg- 
ative than as a positive fact. Radically it is 
a negative — the absence of sinful moods, tem- 
pers, tastes, desires, and motions from the 
mind. It is cleanness — the absence of defile- 
ment; and all these words direct the thought 
to what is not in the heart, rather than to what 
is in the heart. The terms do not indicate 
the quantum of grace; they coalesce upon the 
effect of grace, be the grace itself less or 
more — the complete displacement of sin. 
The negative, however, is the result of a pos- 
itive. Sin is destroyed, rooted out, cast forth, 
cleansed away, by the power of the Holy 
Ghost incoming and indwelling — incoming and 
indwelling by faith. This state of grace, then, 
implies a measure of the operation of the 



148 Gons Method with Man. 

Holy Ghost in the human mind, having its 
seat primarily in the affectional nature, but 
reaching and hallowing all the capacities and 
powers; and of sufficient force to completely 
exorcise all vile affection, and so to affect all 
the dispositions of the mind as to bring it into 
harmony with the will and character of God. 



Sanctifica tion — Wha t it is no T. 1 49 



Chapter XV. 

EN TIRE SANCTIFICA TION— WHA T IT IS NO T. 

HAVING thus far inquired what Christian 
perfection is, let us now make a few 
notes of what it is not. We need first of all 
to be reminded that a man may be perfect 
and imperfect at the same time; that is, per- 
fect in some one respect, while quite imper- 
fect in other respects. A man may have 
perfect eyesight whose lungs are diseased ; or 
complete muscular health with imperfect hear- 
ing. He may remember accurately whose 
digestion is bad; he may walk erect and 
straight who hobbles in his logic, and he may 
reason well whose knees smite together. 
When, therefore, the Scriptures talk of a 
perfect man, they do not necessarily imply 
a man perfect in all particulars. 

1. Christian perfection is not absolute perfec- 
tion; this belongs only to God. 

2. It is not angelic perfection. Angelic be- 
ings, though limited in the range of their 



150 GoB's Method with Man. 

powers, were created holy, and have never 
tasted sin, never moved with reluctance in their 
work, never swerved from the path of duty. 
They must, therefore, be regarded as having all 
that symmetry of character that to their pure 
natures could come of ages of perfect serv- 
ice, amidst holy associates, moving forever in 
an atmosphere charged with the smile of God. 
Powers and characteristics such as theirs man 
may never hope to have till mortality is swal- 
lowed up of life. 

3. It is not Adamic perfection. Before he 
fell, Adam had evidently knowledge by intui- 
tion: ''And out of the ground the Lord God 
formed every beast of the field, and every 
fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam 
to see what he would call them : and whatso- 
ever Adam called every living creature, that 
was the name [descriptive title] thereof." 
''And the rib, which the Lord God had taken 
from man, made he a woman, and brought her 
unto the man. And Adam said, This is now 
bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she 
shall be called Woman, because she was taken 
out of man." "And Adam called his wife's 
name Eve; because she was [to be] the 



Sanctifica tion — Wha t it is not. 151 

mother of all living.'' Plainly, then, he knew 
the characteristic qualities of each animal, 
and he knew the origin, relationship, and 
ofifices of the woman at sight. 

Adam had a physical nature free from any 
principle of disease or decay, and capable of 
existing, with access to the tree of life, in the 
vigor and beauty of youth forever. Grace 
does not, in this life, restore these conditions 
to man. Moreover, as to character, Adam had 
holiness innate. That I may not be mis- 
understood in the use of this last word, I will 
give here Dr. Worcester's definition of it. 
He says: ''Inborn; ingenerate; inbred; nat- 
ural; not superadded; not adscititious; but 
inherent. " Webster says : ' ' Inborn ; native ; 
natural." Adam's holiness was ingenerate; 
natural; not superadded; not adscititious; but 
inherent. He had holiness as he had sensi- 
bility, conscience, will, reason, or muscular 
power to stand or move erect; not as the re- 
sult of any supplemental grace, but by virtue 
of the one act of God that had created him 
man. He was holy, and could maintain holi- 
ness, per force of qualities and powers inher- 
ing in himself, as God had constituted him; 



152 GoD's Method with Man, 

and needed help from God hereto only in 
the sense in which he needed help to look, to 
reason, or to walk. 

It is manifest that neither the original intui- 
tive powers of Adam nor the perpetuity of 
youthful vigor is brought back to man by 
grace — any degree of grace. And as to char- 
acter, holiness in man, since the fall, is never 
natural. True, holiness in a purified soul is 
as real as it was in Adam: but it is never 
natural, never inherent, always superadded, 
always adscititious ; and being always wholly 
of grace, and not at all of nature, is not trans- 
missible. The light in your dwelling at noon 
is real, and is adequate to the extirpation of 
all darkness; but it is a foreign element, and 
is present, not because the walls are luminous, 
but because the shutters are open, allowing 
the light to flow in from another, even from 
the sun. Close the shutters and cut off the 
connection with the foreign and distant body, 
and the room relapses into a dungeon. 
Twelve hours ago it was a dungeon, when the 
earth was between it and the sun. So holi- 
ness in a human soul is a perpetual radiation 
from the Sun of righteousness. In other 



Sanctifica tion — Wha t it is not. 153 

words, it is a state of mind resulting from the 
pervading presence and governing power of 
the Holy Spirit. If holiness in redeemed 
human beings cease to be adscititious, then 
the children of holy parents must cease to in- 
herit depravity, holiness of nature having be- 
come ingenerate, and so transmissible. Nor 
is it easy to see how parents made thus holy 
could have any further need of the atonement, 
or their children need the atonement at all. 

What then? Is the holiness of a human 
being the result of a gracious force applied to 
the soul, which, leaving its native proclivity 
to sin untouched, simply constitutes an over- 
mastering power? This would make a holy 
mind the battle field of a perpetual war — a 
war where holiness does, indeed, triumph over 
sinful proclivity by a sort of mechanico-spir- 
itual holding of it down, against its perpetual 
protest and struggle. No, this is not it. Ho- 
liness is the result of a gracious force exerted, 
not up07t the soul, but Z7Z it, by which, so 
long as the force is present, its mclinations are 
always gracious, always godly. Christian per- 
fection, then, is not natural perfection in holi- 
ness, and therefore not Adamic perfection. 



154 GoD's Method with Man. 

4. Christian perfection is not perfection in 
knowledge. A man may love God with all 
his heart whose perceptions are obtuse, whose 
logic is inconclusive, and who moves feebly 
and uncertainly along any line of intellectual 
inquiry. Perfect love does not imply perfect 
knowledge even of the things of God. Nay, 
a man may have a perfect heart, in the Bible 
sense, who can not give an accurate defini- 
tion of the very state of grace he is in. It is 
not, therefore, freedom from mistake or error. 
Perhaps, however, these words should be 
guarded. Perfect love does exert a pow- 
erful reflex influence upon the intellect. Dr. 
Young uttered a great truth when he said, 
** A bad heart will always send up infatuating 
fumes into the head.'' A very bad man is 
seldom found who does not entertain some 
great delusion. On the contrary, a close walk 
with God, which is always accompanied by 
continual watchfulness and prayer, is itself 
adapted to repress all irregular action of the 
mental powers, to induce serenity and poise 
of soul, and so give it a distaste for wild spec- 
ulations and headlong movements. He who 
walks in the light, by walking in purity with 



Sanctifica tion— Wha t it is not, 155 

God, IS not often far wrong in his theories. 
Many persons know, and the writer is among 
them, that the chief blunders of their Hves 
have been committed just when the heart was 
not sufficiently aglow to reflect an informing 
light upon the judgment. 

5. Christian perfection is not freedom from 
liability to error in practice, which may natu- 
rally flow from error in judgment. It simply 
secures freedom from wrong intention in all 
our words and deeds. 

6. It is not a state of freedom from tempta- 
tion. Even Jesus Christ our Lord was tempted 
in all points, like as we are, yet without sin. 
On one occasion he was tempted forty days 
in the wilderness. Sinless Eve was tempted 
and finally seduced from her allegiance to God. 
Sinless Adam was tempted, and followed his 
wife in transgression. They were both, as 
were the angels, ''sufficient to have stood, 
though free to fall." It appears, all beings 
on probation may be tempted. Even the 
fallen angels — all but the leader of them — • 
must be supposed to have been drawn into 
tlic rebellion, each by the persuasions and 
sophistries of another. No state attainable in 



156 GoD's Method with Man, 

time can be supposed to be free from temp- 
tations, that arise continually from the mis- 
takes and errors of good men, and the malice 
of wicked men and devils. But temptation 
does not imply any necessity to sin, nor, nec- 
essarily, any tendency in the mind to sin. 
When temptation comes to a purified heart 
the temptation is simply the act of another, 
addressing to the tempted a persuasive to do 
wrong; and for which the other is responsi- 
ble, not he. The fact that a man is tempted 
is no proof, therefore, that he is sinful or in- 
clined to sin. It follows that when you seek 
perfect love, you are not seeking a state of 
freedom from temptation ; and that when a 
man who has obtained perfect love is tempted, 
and is even in heaviness through manifold 
temptations, it is no proof that he has lost the 
blessing. ** Who is among you that feareth 
the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his serv- 
ant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no 
light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, 
and stay upon his God.'' 

7. Christian perfection is not a state in 
which the subject can not grow in grace. Quite 
the reverse is true. Growth in grace is mostly 



Sanctifica tion— Wha t it is not. 157 

subsequent to the obtainment of purity of 
heart. This ought not to be at all difficult to 
understand. But men sometimes make the 
difficulties of which they complain. Thus 
they say, *'You preach Christian perfection. 
How can there be any progress beyond per- 
fection?" The answer is, there can be no 
progress, in the particular which constitutes 
the perfection. What is that, in this case? 
It is the complete purification of the heart. 
The man who is cleansed from sin is, in the 
Bible, the man who has perfected holiness in 
the fear of God. Now when grace has cleansed 
the heart, the salvation of the subject is per- 
fected — completed. And that heart can not be 
more than simply clean. But can not grace, 
that performed the work of purifying that 
heart, still work within to enrich and endow it 
with new measures of love, light, and power? 
It seems strange that any Christian should 
deem it impossible in the nature of things, 
that a man should grow in grace after the 
completed process of purification, since all 
agree that we must be pure at our entrance 
into the state of the glorified, and that we 
shall make endless progress afterwards. 



158 GoD's Method with Man', 

8. It is not a state from which we can not 
falL Our first parents fell into sin, though 
created pure. Angels fell from heaven by sin 
during their first or probationary state : and 
Christian perfection does not lift us to a point 
of safety above Adamic or angelic probation- 
ary perfection, or on a par with it. The epis- 
tle to the Hebrews, (chap. 10: 28, 29) seems 
to settle this question of the possibility of 
apostasy, complete and final, on the part of 
persons sanctified through the blood of Jesus. 
*'He that despised Moses' law died without 
mercy under two or three witnesses : of how 
much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he 
be thought worthy who hath trodden under 
foot the Son of God, and hath counted the 
blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanc- 
tified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite 
unto the Spirit of grace?" 

The Bible word is, '' He that shall endure 
unto the end, the same shall be saved.'* ''Be 
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee 
a crown of life." The Lord speaks very 
plainly on this subject in Ezekiel. Chapters 
3, 18, and 33, are explicit, each stating that 
when God says to a righteous man that he shall 



Sanctifica tion— Wha t it is not. 159 

surely live, the promise is always conditioned 
upon his future faithfulness. These teachings 
appear to us to be conclusive ; yet there are 
many candid and deeply spiritual persons who 
believe the dogma that the final and eternal 
salvation of every man is infallibly secured, 
who receives any measure of saving grace. 

Doubtless the principle holds every-where, 
that the danger of a man's turning away from 
God decreases with every new measure of 
grace he receives ; and the assertion that a 
man may reach a point in this life where he is 
confirmed in good, beyond all danger of fall- 
ing, does not seem extravagant ; especially if 
we allow that men may go so far in sin as to 
be irreclaimable. Few, perhaps, would in- 
dorse the assumption of Toplady, 

*' Yes; I to the end shall endure, 
As sure as the earnest is given : 
More happy, but not more secure, 
The glorified spirits of heaven.'* 

Nevertheless, many persons of various creeds, 
Arminians as well as Calvinists, have believed 
themselves the parties to a special covenant 
with God, whereby they were '* sealed unto 
the day of redemption," as they have been 



i6o GoD's Method with Man. 

fond of phrasing it. Mrs. Hester Ann Rog- 
ers, and the late Mrs. Phoebe Pahner were 
instances of this. I see nothing unreasonable 
in the theory that such assurances may be 
gained by Christians, upon the necessary spe- 
cial consecration and faith. But, however 
these things may be, it should never be 
taught that the experience of purity of heart 
secures its subject from the possibility of 
lapse, or makes it certain that he will endure 
to the end. 

A Passage of Personal Experience. I 
knew a man in Christ Jesus above fourteen 
years ago who had an experience of which 
the author is reminded by writing upon this 
point. He was a minister, and had been in 
the enjoyment of perfect love for some years. 
He had labored, somewhat largely, both by 
tongue and pen, to promote this experience 
in the Church. The suggestion had often 
come to him, seriously and suddenly, in the 
midst of his labors: **But suppose you should 
some day lose this grace, as many others have 
done, and should even become a backslidden 
and worldly man. How terrible would be 
such a blow upon the doctrine of holiness, 



Sanctifica tion — Wha t it is not. 1 6 1 

and even upon the general interests of relig- 
ion!" The suggestion never brought a con- 
viction to his mind that such a calamity would 
happen; and yet it did produce a depressing 
effect, weakening him for present Christian 
labor. The question had often been in his 
thought for years, whether there might not be 
a position in grace where these distracting and 
weakening suggestions would not come to 
the soul. 

Conversing one day with an eminent Chris- 
tian lady on this subject, he was told by her 
that she fully embraced the doctrine that per- 
sons walking in the enjoyment of perfect love 
might be sealed unto the day of redemp- 
tion, if they would seek it by proper humil- 
iation, prayer, and consecration. She inti- 
mated that she knew of the truth of the doc- 
trine by personal experience. At the close 
of the conversation, and without any definite 
mental indorsing of the doctrine she had been 
preaching, he became prayerful in an extraor- 
dinary degree that God would bestow upon him 
whatever grace he was willing to give to 
mortals along the line upon which they had 
been conversing. Soon tests began to be pre- 

II 



i62 Go0s Method with Man. 

sented to his mind, involving deeper devote- 
ment and heavier crosses and trials than had 
ever before confronted him. To these cru- 
cial tests his spirit consciously yielded with a 
readiness equal to that with which a toddling 
child comes to mother's arms. In yielding 
thus to God, he supposed he was yielding to 
a series of the most painful revelations to him- 
self of his own w^eakness, worthlessness, and 
vileness, which the Holy Spirit could make 
and he could endure. He supposed also that 
he was to experience the most painful public 
humiliations and apparent failures in his at- 
tempts to preach ; and that he would be called 
literally to follow the Savior in that item of 
his experience, *'he is despised and rejected 
of men." In yielding himself to God, as he 
did that day, he understood that he was sur- 
rendering himself to these phases and fortunes 
of the Christian life. He even looked for 
some very painful realizations to come to him 
immediately. 

The sensations that succeeded were a sur- 
prise indeed. At first they were those of a 
quiet, restful sinking — sinking to great depths, 
though strangely restful still. But soon there 



Sanctifica TiON— Wha t it is no T. 1 63 

succeeded the consciousness of being enfolded 
upon, or rather within, the divine bosom. 
This marvelous sense of union with God, and 
personal interest and identity with all the 
plans of God, was such in many of its fea- 
tures as he has never attempted, or dared 
attempt, to describe either in public or in pri- 
vate. The mind was so absorbed in the con- 
templation of God — in God . himself as it 
seemed — that it paid little attention to its 
own emotional state. When after a while the 
thought recurred to this, he found something 
not exactly to be defined by ''rest:" it was 
rather a certain unnamable blending of the 
human with the divine; a sense of mutuality 
with God; a strange quiet joy as of a divine 
espousal. The soul itself seemed to smile, 
and presently that smile spread out and up 
till it located itself and became a fixture upon 
the face. Feeling desirous, after a little, to 
know w^hat this new experience might be, he 
closed his eyes, and opened the Scriptures to 
this passage: ''And I will make an everlast- 
ing covenant with them, that I will not turn 
away from them, to do them good ; but I will 
put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not 



1 64 GoD's Method with Man, 

depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them 
to do them good, and I will plant them in 
this land assuredly with my whole heart and 
with my whole soul." 

Strange as it may seem, this experience, 
and the singular coincidence of opening to 
the Scripture above recited, did not produce 
in the mind any presumption that the eternal 
salvation of the subject was infallibly secured. 
Far less has he ever felt disposed to presume 
practically upon any such certainty. Still the 
experience did mark an epoch in the spirit- 
ual life of the man. He has found from that 
time his apprehension of Bible truth a good 
deal quickened. Eternal things seem, in a 
sense, to be mapped upon his soul; and he 
has found, especially at times, new power 
both with God and man. 

9. Christian perfection is not the death of 
the animal instincts, appetites^ or desires. Many 
have been greatly deceived on this point; and 
some, after having received the blessing of 
heart purity, on finding that there was still 
occasion for watchfulness, care, and self-de- 
nial, in controlling the physical appetites, and 
reining them in within the bounds of strict tem- 



Sanctifica tion— Wha t it is not. 165 

perance, moderation, and chastity of thought 
and act, have hastily concUided they must 
have been mistaken as to the genuineness of 
the experience itself. Paul says, **So fight 
I, not as one that beateth the air : but I keep 
under my body, and bring it into subjection ; 
lest that by any means, when I have preached 
to others, I myself should be a castaway." 
This is his declaration touching the treatment 
which he found it necessary to give his phys- 
ical nature. 

Paul's Professions of Perfect Love. 
What now does Paul say touching his enjoy- 
ment of complete salvation from sin, and the 
exemplification thereof in the holiness of his 
life? **Ye are witnesses, and God also, how 
holily, and justly, and unblamably we behaved 
ourselves among you that believe.'' *'Be ye 
followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." 
*' Those things which ye have both learned, 
and received, and heard and seen in me, do : 
and the God of peace shall be with you." 
**Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, 
be thus minded." ''And ye became follow- 
ers of us and of the Lord." ''Wherefore I 
beseech you, be ye followers of me." " Breth- 



1 66 GoD's Method with Man. 

ren, be followers together of me, and mark 
them which walk so as ye have us for an 
ensample." 

. All persons who are familiar with the epis- 
tles know that Paul habitually set himself 
forth as an example to be followed and imi- 
tated in the religious lives of those whom he 
had taught, among whom he had lived, and 
to whom he now wrote. Often also, he links 
his co-laborers with himself, as perfect speci- 
mens of heart and life purity. Here, then, is 
a man who declares many times that he is 
pure and holy by the grace of God, who de- 
clares also, and with equal plainness, that he 
keeps under his body, and restrains its tend- 
encies to license by an effort which, as his 
language implies, must have been, at least 
sometimes, strenuous — **so fight I,'' etc. 

Let not these statements dishearten any 
one. Sinful thoughts are painful to the in- 
stincts of the purified heart; and resistance to 
the call of unlawful appetite is not only not 
difficult, but is a joyous assertion of self-con- 
trol, and commonly tantamount to a ringing 
proclamation of victory over the world, the 
flesh, and the devil. Persons who walk stead- 



Sanctifica tion— Wha t it is not. 167 

ily in the light of perfect love, come soon to 
perceive that the constant presence of holy- 
aspiration, the continual keeping of the imag- 
ination and the eye, consequent upon godly 
thinking and planning, together with the pure 
companionship into which they are led, make 
the control of the spiritual nature over the 
physical increasingly easy. 

10. Christian perfection is not a state of 
continual ecstasy. It is not uncommon for per- 
sons to be very much enraptured at the time 
of receiving the witness of perfect love. In 
some cases, God reveals himself in a most 
surprising manner to the soul, and the sensa- 
tions and views that come rushing in are over- 
whelming. Some are aw^e-struck and silent, 
not wishing to speak or move, and some are 
filled with a peculiar joy that expresses itself 
in spiritual laughter which they have no power 
to restrain. Some are melted to irrepressible 
weeping — some, indeed, weep thus while they 
laugh, some are prostrated and are ** absent 
from the body*' for several hours, greatly to 
the alarm of worldly relatives and friends, and 
some are moved to great vociferation in the 
way of singing and shouting. 



1 68 GoD's Method with Man. 

On the other hand, the great majority of 
those who enter into this experience, find sim- 
ply complete interior quiet and rest. Many 
of these have some difficulty in believing that 
so wonderful a change as the removal of all sin-' 
ful dispositions, by the incoming of the Holy 
Spirit, can have been wrought in themselves 
with so little excitation of the emotions. Yet 
persons who will consent to receive the cleans- 
ing grace in this quiet way are quite as apt 
to hold steadily on and to grow in grace as 
are those whose emotional experience is more 
striking at the beginning. 

Persons who experience great rapture at 
the time of receiving the Avitness of perfect 
love are sometimes in danger of losing the 
grace when the rapture subsides, because of 
the great decline which they note in their 
feelings. Life in the steady enjoyment of 
perfect love is far from being continually ec- 
static. In the matter of emotion, the expe- 
rience is likely to vary from time to time, 
according to circumstances, running up and 
down through nearly all the moods : though 
extremes, whether of exaltation or depres- 
sion, are not common, and almost never sue- 



Sanctifica tion— Wha t it js not. 169 

ceed each other by violent changes. The 
mind is much more staid in this state than 
it was in a lower spiritual condition ; and is 
never, in the proper sense, in a state of gloom. 
The test of your spiritual condition is not to 
be sought in your emotional state : it is sim- 
ply a question of your complete harmony 
with the mind and will of God. 

Fanciful Names. Since entire sanctifica- 
tion by the power of the Holy Ghost com- 
pletes the process of saving, it has frequently 
been called ''full salvation.'' This phrase, 
though not borrowed directly from Scripture, 
is a good deal used. The same blessing has 
been called ''the higher life;" to which there 
can be perhaps not more than two exceptions 
taken — first, that the terms are unknow^n to 
the Scriptures, and second, that they seem to 
imply that whoever reaches heart purity is in 
the upper regions of gracious experience pos- 
sible to man in time. It has been called also 
"the rest of faith " — a title well expressing a 
characteristic mood of the soul that enjoys it. 
Some have called it, with less propriety per- 
haps, "the faith of assurance." All avoidance 
of the chosen terms of the Bible for convey- 



170 GoD's Method with Man, 

ing Bible truth, is, in my opinion, of doubt- 
ful expediency. 

Definition. The following definition ex- 
presses briefly and plainly, as I believe, what 
the Bible and Christian experience declare 
entire sanctification or Christian perfection to 
be : Entire santification is the complete purifica- 
tion of the heart, resulting, through the blood of 
Jesus Christ, from the pervading presence and 
governing power of the Holy Spirit^ continually 
possessing and occupying the nature ^ and subdu- 
ing all things therein unto himself 



Need of Sanctjfication. 171 



Chapter XVL 

WHY DO I NEED ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION, 
OR PERFECT LOVE? 

BECAUSE IT IS PERFECT LOVE; and until 
you receive it, you are not perfect in 
love ; in other words, you are not perfectly 
saved — your Christian character is incom- 
plete. True, you have all the graces of the 
Holy Spirit; but you have withal a mixture 
of sinful principle in your heart. You sing of 
your own experience when you sing, ** Prone 
to wander.'* There is in your heart a bent 
to backsliding, a taste and relish for at least 
some forms of sin. You maintain innocency 
of life, I trust; but you know that evil still 
lurks within; that much of your strength is 
spent in combating interior perverseness, and 
that you sometimes inquire in heaviness of 
spirit, ** Is there to be no rest from this con- 
flict, but in the grave ?" My brother, there 
is a better way, there is a higher life. God 
brought you out of spiritual Egypt on pur- 



172 GoD's Method with Man. 

pose to bring you into the Canaan of perfect 
love. This long wandering in the wilderness 
is not of God, but of the pride, stubbornness 
and unbelief of man. Jesus gave himself for 
you, that he might redeem you from all in- 
iquity, and purify you unto himself a peculiar 
person, zealous of good works. Therefore, 
leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ 
— the mere alphabet of salvation — go on, I 
beseech you, to that perfection of love, where 
grace shall be in you without alloy of sin, and 
you shall stand perfect and complete in all the 
will of God. 

You Need it to Honor Christ. He has 
undertaken to model character within you 
after his own ideal. He furnishes the design, 
he selects instruments and occasions, he doeth 
the work; but he does require you to abandon 
yourself completely into his hands, and let 
him mold you into the likeness of the heav- 
enly. Addison said, *^The statue is in the 
block of marble; it is the business of the 
sculptor to find it.'' There are wonderful pos- 
sibilities of character within you. Jesus Christ 
your Savior is the Divine Sculptor, who will 
surely, as fast and as far as you allow, carve 



Need of Sanctification. 173 

your character into the likeness and image of 
himself. You believe all this, I doubt not. 
You know that ever}^ artist gets his honor 
from his works of chief excellence. Watts 
understood this when he said, he would give 
all the poetry he ever wrote for Charles Wes- 
ley's *' Wrestling Jacob." Let Christ then 
realize his own ideal in you, by exalting you 
above all earthward gravitation, bringing you 
in this life to sit in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus, and making you an object in the eyes 
of the ages to come, illustrative of the exceed- 
ing riches of his grace. One work of an art- 
ist brought to great perfection contributes 
more to his fame than do a thousand medio- 
cre performances. The Gospel was less in- 
dorsed, and God Avas less honored, by all 
the Church at Corinth than by the one man, 
Paul. 

West's Painting. In the Fall of 1830, I 
visited in Philadelphia a painting by Benja- 
min West. It was **The Healing of the Par- 
alytic," as recorded in Mark 2d. From the 
day of my visit to that picture I can always 
see it by simply shutting my eyes and remain- 
ing quiet a little. Christ was the central fig- 



174 GoD's Method with Man. 

ure, with his face directed to the foreground. 
Above him was the fractured roof, whereon 
portions of the forms of four strong men were 
seen, each holding a chord attached to the 
corner of a pallet. This was suspended by 
them, not quite breast high, just before the 
Savior. On this, with his head to the Savior*s 
left, lay the skeleton form of the sick man. 
Sitting on the ground before Jesus were a 
number of women, several of whom had each 
her babe. These women, with faces aglow, 
were looking earnestly at Jesus. To the right 
of Christ were several men in dignified ap- 
parel, but frowning — scribes and Pharisees, of 
course. Filling the background were *'the 
twelve," leaning forward and looking with in- 
tense interest, some at the paralytic and some 
at Jesus. The palsied man was but thinly 
covered by the drapery of his couch, leav- 
ing chest and arms exposed. He was much 
wasted with disease, and one fancied he could 
see the bones through the flesh. The face 
was upturned to Jesus, with a look of unut- 
terable distress and pleading. 

The impression made by the painting in 
1830, abides in 1879. What was it that so 



Need of Sanctification. 175 

stamped its impression upon the boy? It 
Avas the perfection with which the artist had 
wrought out his own ideal. West is as im- 
mortal in my thought to-day as is his paint- 
ing. Would you honor Christ then ? Let him 
express all his thought in you. As a member 
of the Christian Church you are Christ's rep- 
resentative in the earth. He links his reputa- 
tation among men with your life. If you al- 
low the Gospel to be a failure in your case, 
you disgrace him. Wherefore, I beseech you, 
yield yourself to his design, and allow him 
to fulfill in you **all the good pleasure of his 
goodness, and the work of faith with pov/er, 
that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may 
be glorified in you.'* 

Theory and Fact. You need the blessing 
of heart purity because it is, to a large extent, 
the condition of your success as a Christian 
worker. You are a member of the Church of 
Christ. The business of the Church is to 
teach the world holiness ; not literature, not 
science, not art, not social refinement; though 
all these flourish most and best in the atmos- 
phere of the Church ; but to teach men holi- 
ness of heart and life. What a man is to teach 



176 Gons Method with Man. 

he must have. If it be to teach mathematics 
he must be a mathematician ; if it be to teach 
botany he must be a botanist ; if it be Greek 
he must first get Greek ; and if we are to 
teach holiness we must first have hoHness. 
There can be no adequate teaching in this 
divine science without example and illustra- 
tion. In all the natural sciences instruc- 
tion is given alternately by theory and by 
fact: and the student goes perpetually from 
the recitation room out under the heavens, 
abroad into the fields, or down into the labor- 
atory. He must witness the fact, as well as 
learn the theory. This is necessary, in fields 
of inquiry where the student desires to learn. 
But the world does not desire to learn holiness 
of th^ Church. The lesson is distasteful; the 
whole class is inattentive: besides, putting 
them at their best, they are dull of apprehen- 
sion in this particular branch to a marvel. 
How are the lessons of holiness to be borne 
in upon the apprehensions of a reluctant, 
heavy-eyed world, while the theory of the 
pulpit is contradicted, or at best not at all 
illustrated, by the fact in the pews ? I fear it 
must be confessed that the ideas of the great 



Need of Sanctification. 177 

unsaved masses are almost hopelessly con- 
fused on the question of the real power of 
the Gospel to save men from sin, and exalt 
human character into god-likeness. 

Salt. Christ has notified us of the use he 
means to make of us, by saying, **Ye are 
the salt of the earth.'' ** Ye are the light of 
the world. Let your light so shine before 
men that they may see your good works, and 
glorify your Father which is in heaven.'' He 
depends for the impression which his Gospel 
shall make upon the world about you on the 
character which his Gospel has given to you : 
and it is as your life represents or misrepre- 
sents Christ that others are to be led to 
God or misled to their eternal overthrow. As 
you love the cause of Christ, therefore, and 
desire the salvation of souls, I beseech )/ou, 
yield yourself fully to your Savior, that he 
may cast forth from your heart every unholy 
affection, and lift you above yourself, by fill- 
ing you with pure love — filling you with the 
Holy Ghost. 

Does a Gospel minister inquire, Why do I 
need to be made perfect in love? The rea- 
sons are more than can be written in this 

12 



178 GoD's Method with Man. 

book. You can not preach effectually a Gospel 
which your life and spirit do not steadily illus- 
trate. If your heart be not completely puri- 
fied, your spirit among your people, among 
your neighbors and in your family, will at 
least occasionally show it. It is mortifying 
and weakening for a minister to be obliged to 
know that the Gospel which he preaches to 
others as the power of God unto salvation 
does not fully save himself. An oculist must 
not have sore eyes. The man who treats 
rheumatics must not limp. He must not go 
about with a chronic cough who sells ** a sure 
cure for consumption." Nor, as a rule, can 
he succeed in bringing men to Christ for sal- 
vation whose spirit and temper declare him- 
self not saved. In regard to our work with 
our hearers, quite as much depends on our 
animus as on the breadth and acumen of our 
thoughts, or the quality of our phrase. To a 
very great extent our work is heart work; and 
other things being equal, or anywhere nearly 
equal, the man whose heart is most steadily 
and intensely aglow with the love of God is 
the one who will win the greatest number of 
souls to Jesus. 



Need of Sanctificatton-. 179 

Again, let me remind you of what I sup- 
pose we all have learned, that no man can 
preach effectually any standard of Gospel sal- 
vation materially above the level of his own 
experience. '*Be ye clean that bear the ves- 
sels of the Lord/' *'The shepherd goeth be- 
fore the flock, and leadeth them out/' The 
minister ought to be the holiest man in the 
parish. Our business is to teach men, not 
mere morality, but spirituality, heavenly mind- 
edness, godliness — God-likeness. There are 
attributes of character that can not be gained 
from books, or from mere spoken words: they 
will, with rare exceptions, come to the peo- 
ple, if at all, through the spirit of their min- 
ister. True, there are some in all our flocks 
who will in the higher sense live godly what- 
ever may be the spiritual status of the pas- 
tor. Whenever it happens that several mem- 
bers of the Church are advanced in experi- 
ence beyond their own leader, there arise 
many awkward situations, fruitless of good to 
him or them, and pregnant of annoyance and 
spiritual danger to them all. **The husband- 
man that laboreth must be first partaker of 
the fruits." 



i8o GoD's Method with Man. 

GoD*s Man in the Town. Again, the min- 
ister of Christ is Christ's representative : as 
such he is in his sphere a mediator or mid- 
dle man, and his place is between the people 
and God: the nearer God the better. Like 
the ancient priest, he bears the Urim and 
Thummim of the tribes of Israel on his heart. 
His spirit glows in their prosperity, and is 
saddened and darkened by their failures. 
Every true minister holds his position by di- 
vine appointment. He is at his post, not be- 
cause, all things considered, he regards the 
Christian ministry as offering inducements 
stronger than any other calling, but because 
he has felt, ** necessity is laid upon me; yea, 
woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.'' He 
is in the ministry because God has put him 
there : and he represents the kingdom of God 
in the community. He is minister plenipo- 
tentiary from the court of heaven. He is an 
embassador for Christ. He is the one man 
who represents in his own person, character, 
and life, the unworldliness, the sanctity, the 
heavenliness of religion. He is, par eminencey 
God's man. He is obhged, by the nature of 
his office, to appear before the people a holy 



Need of Sanctifica tion. 1 8 i 

man ; with no motive lower than the glory of 
God and their highest good. What he must 
appear to be he must in reality be, or consent 
in so far to act the hypocrite. Any minister 
is weakened greatly before the people when- 
ever he is conscious of a difference between 
the real and the apparent in his professional 
work. Surely nothing less than a personal 
holiness consciously complete can fit a man 
for the duties of so sublime an appointment 
or so sacred a relation to his fellows. 

Deacons need the fullness of the blessing. 
It was the sine qua non of their original elec- 
tion to office. ** Wherefore, brethren, look 
ye out among you, seven men of honest re- 
port, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, 
whom we may appoint over this business'' 
(namely, the temporalities of the Church and 
the care of the poor). **And the saying 
pleased the whole multitude: and they chose 
Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy 
Ghost,'' and six others, whose names are 
given ; * ' whom they set before the apostles : 
and when they had prayed, they laid their 
hands on them." Deacons are a heaven-ap- 
pointed order in the Church : they are, in 



1 82 GoD's Method with Man, 

their sphere, representative men; chosen and 
put forward by their brethren for their valua- 
ble traits of character. They are to supervise 
temporalities ; and are, therefore, the point of 
contact between the Church and the world. 
They are the almoners and ministers of the 
Church to the poor — God's good angels in the 
houses of the dependent and grief-stricken. 
Truly, the early Church was right in saying, 
these men must be ''full of the Holy Ghost 
and of wisdom.'* 

Class Leaders need it. They are the sub- 
pastors of the Church, having intimate spirit- 
ual oversight each of a limited number of the 
flock of God. The leader must have spiritual 
insight — skill to interpret signs and symp- 
toms of spiritual condition ; clear views of 
Gospel provision, with tact for the care of the 
sick and wounded, and for the feeding and 
furtherance of the strong, A leader must go 
before ; must pioneer the way, and beckon on 
the men of his command. What is a leader 
to do, when one of the members of his class 
declares with tears how he hungers and thirsts 
after righteousness, even for all the mind that 
was in Christ Jesus? What, indeed, can he 



Need of Sanctification. 183 

do, if he have no experimental knowledge of 
the salvation his brother seeks? His replies 
and directions can be but random shots and 
guesses at the best. Oh for the multiplication 
of Carvossos and Reeveses in the Church ! 

Sunday-school workers need it. It is just 
the inspiration for their work. It is a bap- 
tism of intense purity. It is a baptism of 
love, both to God and souls. It is a baptism 
of light. **When he, the Spirit of truth, is 
come, he will guide you into all truth. He 
shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto 
you.'' A man is wonderfully prepared to 
teach others when into his soul the Holy 
Spirit flashes the truths of the Word of God, 
opening his understanding, quickening his 
apprehensions, and making the written truth 
the vehicle upon which he comes in, and im- 
parts the divine nature. God indwelling is 
the source of all true power for doing Chris- 
tian work. This power is but slightly devel- 
oped while yet there are the remains of car- 
nality and self-seeking in the heart. 

Business men need this baptism of power. 
Their contact is constant with the world. 
They are supposed to be seeking the world. 



1 84 GoD's Method with Man. 

A spirit of complete devotion to God, in one 
of their number, therefore, arrests attention as 
something unlocked for, and gives its pos- 
sessor vantage ground for doing God's work. 
Such a spirit tells on clerks, customers and 
compeers in business alike. By a silent per- 
vading influence it tells every-where, and tells 
mightily. He that has it comes soon to wield 
large authority for their good over the minds 
about him. The man conversant in busi- 
ness circles, and in questions of price and ex- 
change, the man at home among bales, and 
clerks, and ledgers, and bags of gold, yet liv- 
ing above them all, serving God in all, and 
holding on his steadfast way through all, 
stands sublime among men; even now he 
shines as the brightness of the firmament. 
He builds better than he knows. His hfe is 
turning many to righteousness. He is win- 
ning benedictions from earth and heaven : and 
he shall shine as the stars forever and ever. 

Mothers need complete salvation. Upon 
mothers come the kinds of trial that are most 
strongly adapted to tax and exhaust the store 
of gracious affection. It is known that the 
perpetual repetition of small trials and fretting 



Need of Sanctifica tion, i 85 

cares is much harder to bear than the occur- 
rence, now and then, of some grievous afflic- 
tion. Perhaps, indeed, we all bear a great 
calamity more easily than we do successive 
slight vexations and inconveniences. I knew 
a mother, who betrayed undue haste and even 
irritability, when her little daughter carelessly 
knocked a tea-cup from the table, and broke 
it. I marked that mother when, some time 
after, that child lay sick three weeks and died. 
She patiently watched and nursed the darling 
with heart all subdued and chastened under 
the great sorrow, nor did she once rebel; 
but as the days wore on, she drew nearer and 
nearer to the Savior. In all this she sinned 
not nor charged God foolishly. 

Why this Anomaly? I do not know, un- 
less it is because, under the greater trials of 
life, we are constrained to cry to God — the 
magnitude of the occasion reminding us of 
our need of help, a need which we do not 
equally realize under trifling causes of irrita- 
tion. So, we who conquered the greater, are 
conquered by the less. The numberless cares 
of a mother are in the aggregate a tax not 
to be met without abounding grace. What 



i86 GoD's Method with Man, 

blessing can be given of greater value to her, 
or to the group that call her mother, than 
the grace to be always patient, always calm, 
always firm for the right — a ministering angel 
of love and gentleness in her home ? 



Ho W TO OB TAIN SANCTIFICA TION. 1 8 7 



Chapter XVIL 

HOW SHALL I OBTAIN ENTIRE SANCTIFI- 
CA TION ? 

HOW shall I obtain perfect love, full sal- 
vation, entire sanctification, holiness of 
heart? 

Resolve to have it. It will not avail to 
look at it, and talk about it, and wish you 
had it, and discuss the theory of it pro and 
con. Many have done this year after year 
unto this day; and are just as near it now as 
they were years ago — perhaps — and perhaps 
not ; I guess not. The more one discusses 
any item of Christian experience, without an 
honest, earnest, and persistent effort to obtain 
it, the greater number of technical difficulties 
he is likely to find in his way. Don't specu- 
late ; do n^t philosophize ; do n*t ask after the 
how, nor the why, nor the wherefore. There 
are many points in it that you will never un- 
derstand till its own light blazes in your soul. 
With deep humihty and self-distrust, push 
the purpose to be, by God's grace, a holy 



1 88 GoD's Method with Man. 

man. With this purpose unalterably fixed 
in your soul, one very important point is 
gained. 

Resolve to have it now. It is never 
reached till it is sought as a present blessing. 
It is never reached by mere growth, taking 
the term to mean an insensible development 
and advancement, having its type in the 
growth of plants and animals ; but is given 
instantaneously, upon the exercise of faith. 
The faith that saves here, like the faith that 
saves in regeneration, has its prerequisites. 
Here, they are conviction of my want, deep 
humiliation of soul in view of my unlikeness 
to God, renewed and deeper consecration. In- 
deed, the exercises of the mind in connection 
with the experience of regeneration, and those 
of the same mind at a subsequent period, in 
connection with the experience of entire sanc- 
tification, maintain a very close analogy: the 
chief differences being, that there is no sense 
of guilt in the humiliation of the soul in con- 
nection with the second experience, and that 
all the processes imply and employ clearer 
intelligence and are deeper. The man who 
remembers how he sought the blessing of 



How TO OBTAIN SANCTIFI CATION. 1 89 

pardon, knows how to seek the blessing of 
purity : namely, to look for it as something to 
be received at once and by simple faith. 

Seek for the blessing of perfect love, then, 
according to the oft-quoted directions of John 
Wesley, *' Expect it by faith, expect it as 
you are, expect it now/' Seeking it thus, 
you shall at once receive it, for God, in an- 
swer to your prayer, will point out any obsta- 
cle that may stand in your way. Should the 
Holy Spirit do this, remove the obstacle im- 
mediately, and adjust yourself to the light he 
gives you : but seek on by simple faith. You 
will soon find it necessary to receive it, if at 
all, with all its consequences — with all its 
coincident sacrifices, crosses and trials. 

Resolve to have it for all time. In the 
very nature of the case it is not possible that 
you should seek personal purity in any accep- 
table way if you are not impelled by a horror 
of impurity. And if you are thus impelled, 
your desire is necessarily to be clean forever. 
If, therefore, you really seek holiness at all, 
you seek it for the whole period of your ex- 
istence. 

Seek it Definitely, Earnestly, Persist- 



190 GoD's Method with Man. 

ENTLY. You will probably never receive the 
blessing of purity till you seek it just as defi- 
nitely, and just as earnestly, as you sought 
the pardon of your sins at the outset of your 
Christian career. You are to turn all your 
attention this way. This is to be the topic 
of thought, of reading, of conversation and 
of prayer; and the incessant cry of your soul 
is to be for God, even the living God, till 
he come, and speak the second time, /'Be 
clean.'* True, your inward foes are mighty, 
but your all-conquering Jesus is mightier; and 
he will expel every unholy thing from your 
heart, and purify it a temple unto himself. 
Do n't be dismayed, and do n't allow your- 
self to relapse into indifference, because of 
any obstacles you find. They are all vincible 
by the power of Jesus Christ ; and he is at 
work in you. Cleave to him. Cry to him, 
** Create in me a clean heart, O God, and re- 
new a right spirit within me." 

Consecrate yourself wholly to God. 
There is a sense in which you did surrender 
yourself to God, according to the light which 
he was pleased to shed on you, when seek- 
ing conversion. During your Christian life 



Ho W TO OB TAIN SANCTIFICA TION. 1 9 1 

you are supposed to have made and renewed 
your consecration from time to time, as you 
have been brought into new light or new 
exigencies. But now a new conviction has 
seized your spirit, and you are about to take 
a new position in grace. You are convicted 
of your need of purity of heart. That con- 
viction itself has brought a great deal of 
new light to you. It is as if Jesus had said, 
before your conversion, **I have yet many 
things to say unto you, but ye can not bear 
them now,'' and his Spirit is, at this later 
period, beginning to show you some of these 
*'many things.'' In view of this feature of 
the divine method, your submission to Christ 
as a seeker of pardon and regeneration, was 
one thing, and your adequate consecration 
now must be very distinctly another and a 
deeper thing. Besides, time has changed 
your position, your relations and your posses- 
sions. Gracious experience up to this point 
has magnified you. You have more, you 
know more, you can more, you are more. 
And by all these, the demand is enlarged for 
breadth and depth of consecration to-day. 
Again, if God is about to endow you with 



192 GoD's Method with Man, 

new measures of light and power he will cer- 
tainly appoint you new tasks, and lay upon 
you new burdens. These he will show you 
as you approach the blessing ; and to all such 
showings there must be affirmative response 
from your heart. These responses are every 
one an added item of your consecration ; and 
every new *'I will" brings you consciously 
nearer the end of your faith, the complete 
salvation of your soul. This process of heart- 
opening to the light, of heart-searching, and 
of full and complete heart-yielding to God at 
every point, occupies various lengths of time, 
from hours to weeks, as the mind is less or 
more docile, and the hunger of the soul is 
more or less intense. I have known a few 
cases where a single paroxysm of agonizing 
wrestling has brought the soul into the light 
of full salvation, but such cases are not com- 
mon. 

I have known some cases where the conse- 
cratory act was a single, all-comprehending 
devotement of person, time, possessions, rela- 
tionships, and possibilities: while in others, 
and by far the greater number, the consecra- 
tion has evidently been by items; the heart 



How TO OBTAIN SANCTIFICATION. 1 93 

being brought to this test, then that, then 
another, and thus on to the end. Consecra- 
tion is not complete till every question pre- 
sented by the Spirit of God touching the 
present and the whole future of your life is 
settled in full accord with the divine demand ; 
and when all is surrendered, and every ques- 
tion is thus settled, the consecration is com- 
plete. A seeker of perfect love may know 
when his consecration is complete by one par- 
ticular sign, namely, that he will find in his 
heart a desire to present something more to 
God, while he will be continually disap- 
pointed in his search for more to give. In 
other words, the heart that tries in vain to 
find one more offering for God has already 
given all. 

How A YOUNG LADY OBTAINED IT. In the 

Autumn of 1874 I held a meeting in one of 
the cities of Minnesota. One evening a young 
lady, a member of the Church, inquired of 
me if she could have an interview with me 
next day. It was arranged, and at ten next 
morning she called. I read her character in 
her face somewhat at once, but was much 
more impressed with her clear intelligence 

13 



194 GoD's Method with Man, 

and scope of mind, on talking with her. She 
wanted perfect love. I began my treatment of 
her case by trying to find out where she was 
in the spiritual scale, and learned that she did 
not know herself She had, some two years 
before, sought purity of heart, and thought 
she obtained it; but soon lost the blessing she 
had found, Avhatever it was. Her difficulty 
now was, that she could not see how it should 
be that God, if there were a distinct blessing 
of purity, did not bestow it at the time of 
conversion. Indeed, she had rather embraced 
the notion that whoever is converted is made 
pure, since she could not see why God should 
do his work by halves. I did not reply to this 
point at once, but presently asked her if she 
was satisfied that she now enjoyed the favor 
of God. She said, ''Yes." After a few mo- 
ments' further talk and a little pause, I in- 
quired, '' Have you any doubt about this mat- 
ter of your acceptance with God?" She said, 
*'No — none whatever." I replied, ''Nor have 
I; but now let me ask you one further ques- 
tion ; Are you entirely sanctified?" "Oh no," 
said she instantly, "entire santification is just 
what I am seeking." I replied, "Now you 



Ho W TO OB TAIN SANCTIFICA TION. 1 95 

see, sister, just the distinction which you said 
you could not see: you yourself are converted, 
and a child of God ; yet you are not entirely 
sanctified.'* I then took the Bible, and sat 
down beside her, and read, she looking over, 
the 51st Psalm, in which David, Avho had so 
terribly backslidden, prayed in alternate sen- 
tences, now for pardon, and now for purity; 
showing that the distinction between the two 
was clear, even in the mind of a man in the 
old dispensation. 

In the light of this Scripture, and of sev- 
eral passages in the epistles to which I also 
turned, she came to see the nature of full sal- 
vation, and the distinction betw^een regenera- 
tion, or the being made alive in Christ Jesus, 
and entire sanctification, or the being made 
pure in Christ Jesus. Then I said, '* Miss M. 
will you have this blessing?" She said, ''Yes, 
I want it." ''But do you want it enough to 
pay the price? Nothing less than the conse- 
cration of your whole being, deep, all-com- 
prehending, and for all time, will bring you 
into its possession. Will you consent to be 
one of the few, unknown of men, who walk 
with God in white ? Will you consult his 



196 Goas Method with Man. 

glory in 3^our work, in your conversation, in 
your reading, in social intercourse, in your 
style of dress, and in all things else?" She 
said, '*I want to do all this, but it looks for- 
midable." *'God is about to help you, by 
taking possession of your whole nature, and 
purifying you unto himself a peculiar person. 
Will you receive him now ? Will you aban- 
don yourself into his hands, and let him do 
it?" She said, ''I wish I could; I'll try;" 
and then she was about to retire ; but I ob- 
jected, and said, *'You must make this conse- 
cration now:" adding, '' I want you to repeat 
after me these words" (taking a verse of C. 
Wesley's hymn beginning, ^'Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost"), 

''Take my soul and body's powers.*' 

She was silent, but evidently in a violent 
internal struggle. I repeated the line again 
and again, still urging her to adopt the words 
and use them as her prayer to God. She 
seemed at length to try to say them; but 
her lips refused to move, and she said, with a 
look of discouragement and distress, '*I can't 
say them." *'But you can, you must;" I 
said, with much emotion. ''You are at the 



Ho W TO OB TAIN SANCTIFICA TION. 1 9 7 

crisis of your life. You must, with desperate 
energy, abandon yourself into the hands of 
Christ, and take him now, your portion for- 
ever/* Finally she began, and very deliber- 
ately repeated the line. I repeated the next, 

"Take my memory, mind, and will;" 
And she followed: and the next, 

''All my goods, and all my hours;" 

And thus on to the close, as follows: 

'* All I know, and all I feel ; 
All I think, or speak, or do ; 
Take my heart, but make it new." 

She followed with deepening emotion and 
tears. Then there were a few moments of 
silence, when I said, ''Is it settled?" ''All set- 
tled," she replied. She soon arose and left, 
declaring to my hostess, as she passed through 
the room, "I have found all I sought." On 
the following Sabbath she gave an account, 
somewhat in detail, of her exercises as given 
above, and stated that she had dedicated all 
her life to God, and that she was holding on 
by faith, adding, just as she sat down, "While 
I speak I feel the evidence, sweet and clear, of 
my full acceptance with God." Her changed 



1 98 GoD's Method with Man, 

appearance, and her simple, clear testimony 
on that Sabbath morning produced more con- 
viction in the congregation, I doubt not, than 
had resulted from her whole previous life as a 
professing Christian, a life marked by its high 
moral and social excellencies. Indeed, I have 
not often seen a congregation more profoundly 
moved on any occasion than was that one 
under her plain statement of what God had 
wrought. 

What God is to mold must be put into 
HIS HANDS. That this uttermost devotement 
of the being, with all its appertainings, to God 
should be the grand condition on which he 
suspends the promise of the complete purifi- 
cation of our nature is most reasonable ; since 
the entire man must necessarily be put into 
the hand of God, and must remain unresist- 
ingly there, if the divine ide^j, is to be wrought 
out in the character. That idea, at this point 
in the religious life, is the complete elimina- 
tion from the heart of all things perverse and 
vile by the incoming and indwelling of the 
Holy Ghost. The policy is, surrender. He 
doeth the work of rectifying character — he, 
not you. A direct effort on your part just 



How TO OBTAIN SANCTIFICATION, 199 

now to make yourself good is an imperti- 
nence, — a piece of ofificious intermeddling. 

The faith that sanctifies wholly. As 
was remarked in treating of justification, the 
highest exempHfication of faith is the act of 
consecration itself, since the putting of all 
one has and is into the hand of God, now 
and forever, is a manifestation of confidence 
and trust in God positively unlimited. The 
moment a seeker of heart purity does thus con- 
secrate himself the Almighty Savior comes in, 
and takes complete possession of his nature. 
That moment the work is done. But observe: 
the recipient of this grace needs to know that 
the work is done, else he may keep on seek- 
ing what he already has, and so fall into great 
confusion and entanglement ; for certainly he 
will not know how to treat his soul if he 
thoroughly misapprehend its position in the 
kingdom of grace. Having, therefore, fully 
consecrated himself to God, and knowing that 
fact by the testimony of his own conscious- 
ness, he must steadfastly believe the truth that 
God accepts him, and fully saves him now. 
This exercise of faith is eminently reasonable. 
The man who has reached this point is author- 



200 GoD's Method with Man. 

ized to note for himself the following facts : i. 
God required this dedication at my hands : 2. 
he made promise of acceptance: 3. he awak- 
ened desire in my soul to make the dedica- 
tion : 4. he gave me light and direction in 
making it: 5. he gave me strength to make it; 
and 6. by his help I have made it ; so that 
God, the Author of the command and the 
promise, is also the Author of all these gra- 
cious motions of my own mind — God work- 
ing in me to will and to do of his own good 
pleasure. Would God then give the com- 
mand, ''Come out from among them, and be 
ye separate ;" subjoining the promise, '' I will 
receive you;" and then work in me to the 
obeying of the command, only to mock me 
at last, by falsifying his own promise, in re- 
fusing to receive me ? I can not believe it. 
But I must believe it, or believe its alterna- 
tive — '^ He does receive me.'' Fasten here. 
Hold on here. Don't struggle after emotion. 
Rest in the promise — in the Promiser. Be 
still. And as you find the power to be still, 
recognize the hand of God, your Savior. 

It has been asked. Is it possible that the 
terrible pollutions of the soul can be cleansed 



How TO OBTAIN SaNCTIFICATION. 201 

away, without producing such a change as 
shall report itself to the consciousness as a 
great inward revolution? If this question 
were proposed to me, I should say, *^No; 
it is not possible : the change will report 
itself." But the report sometimes comes in 
so different a manner from that anticipated, 
that it is not heeded or not understood. It 
is very common for persons seeking entire 
sanctification to expect great excitation of 
the emotions in connection with the incom- 
ing of the purifying Spirit. In many instances 
this strong excitement does occur; but in the 
majority of cases it does not. Commonly, 
*'the kingdom of God cometh not with ob- 
servation," in this matter; but the heart 
yields up itself and its all, item by item, to 
Christ, whereupon the Spirit of peace and rest 
takes possession and all is quiet. Now this 
quietness is really the report, made to the 
consciousness, of the great change wrought 
within. But if the anticipation have been of 
thrilling emotions, the absence of these is 
likely to be regarded as the lack of any ob- 
servable change whatever. Whether, there- 
fore, there be much, or little, or no emotion, 



202 GoD's Method with Man. 

the next step after the consecration is known 
to be complete, is the exercise of appropri- 
ating faith — the faith that claims Christ, my 
perfect Savior now. 

Thus you have been brought into the ex- 
perience of perfect love, entire sanctification, 
full salvation, Christian perfection, complete- 
ness in all the will of God, perfect holiness, 
salvation to the uttermost. This is what you 
have ; but there is more, without limit, that 
you have not. All that you have is without 
the shadow of worthiness on your part ; and 
wholly of grace — free unmerited grace. Up 
to this point, grace has performed the single 
office of saving you : henceforth the immeas- 
urable treasures of the Godhead are to come 
to you, and endow you Avith love, and light, 
and power, more and more, according to your 
seeking, and the exceeding riches of his grace, 
through time and to eternity. 



How TO RETAIN SANCTIFICATION. 203 



Chapter XVIII. 

HO IV SHALL I RETATN ENTIRE SANCTIFI- 
CATION? 

THE grand condition on Avhich God can 
show you the great and marvelous things 
he has for you is that you maintain intact the 
fact of interior purity which his grace has 
now communicated. This failing, all fails. 
Therefore, be assured, Satan will leave no de- 
vice untried, for your overthrow. He knows 
you have gained a new vantage ground in the 
expulsion from your soul of all that bears his 
image or is in sympathy with his designs. 
He has infernal rage and cunning. But, thank 
God, he is a conquered foe ; he clanks a 
chain ; his head is bruised ; and he can only 
proceed so far as his Conqueror, your Savior, 
shall allow. This can never be to the point 
of * compulsion to sin, nor beyond the line 
where the temptation will itself minister to 
your strength, on condition of your fidelity 
under it. We are not ignorant of his devices: 



204 GoD's Method with Man. 

let us note some of them. But let me detain 
you a moment. 

An Unmistakble Sign of Heart-purity. 
I want to say at some time, and may as well 
say it now, there are certain marks which, if 
you will observe them, will indicate to you in 
a manner entirely satisfactory to yourself the 
presence and action within you of a heart clean 
by the grace of God. The principal sign of 
this purity you will find in the fact that your 
heart iitstinctively starts back at the approach 
of a sinful thought or suggestion. Paul says, 
**Abhor that which is evil." We don't always 
get the strength of this sentence, because we 
don't get the strength of its first word. We 
like certain dishes ; we dislike certain others. 
But if a dish of simple filth were set before 
us we should abhor it, and consider ourselves 
insulted in the extreme. Take another illus- 
tration. On going out for an evening, you 
set the lamp in a given place and extinguish 
it, having laid a match near it for use when 
you return. Coming home in the dark you 
put your flat hand upon the table to find 
the match. Your hand comes down upon 
a bug or a worm. Your nerves are instantly 



Bow TO RETAIN SANCTIFICATION. 205 

shocked, and your hand conmes away. This is 
because you abhor what you have accidentally 
touched; and the motion by which your hand 
is lifted is instinctive. This explains what I 
mean by saying that your heart instinctively 
starts back at the approach of a sinful thought 
or suggestion. 

The point which I wish specially observed 
is, that the heart which is entirely purified by 
grace starts back thus at the suggestion of any 
sin, greater or smaller, popular or unpopular, 
enriching or impoverishing, socially elevating 
or degrading. There is, perhaps, no person so 
low that he has not a horror of some one pos- 
sible form of atrocious wickedness. But as 
we come up in the scale of character the num- 
ber of offenses against right which the mind 
comes to regard with horror is multiplied. A 
man of entirely upright and moral habits can 
say, in regard to the greater number of sin- 
ful deeds, ''I abhor them.'' The list is very 
greatly increased, however, even in the case 
of such a one, when the soul is converted. 
But when that heart is completely possessed 
by the all-cleansing Spirit the list of things ab- 
horred is as large as the list of the things sinful. 



2o6 Go as Method with Man. 

A Purified Heart under Temptation. I 
think I ought also to say, that a close and 
patient observation of the temper which you 
find your heart exhibiting under temptation 
will give you assured light. There are forms 
of temptation, especially that to petulance, 
which, coming as it often does suddenly and 
violently, produces in the mind a sensation 
much like that of the sin itself I have known 
many persons to take this impression as proof 
either that the blessing had not been received 
or that it had been lost. 

A very intelligent Christian mother re- 
ceived the blessing of purity in one of my 
recent meetings. For a day or two she con- 
tinued to enjoy what I may call a glowing 
experience of perfect love. Presently, how- 
ever, she came to me in trouble, and asked 
an interview. I called, at her request; and 
she told me she feared she had been deceived 
in regard to her late experience. **What has 
happened?" I inquired. She said, ** Yester- 
day I was reading in this room, when my 
two little children rushed noisily in, break- 
ing me off I instantly felt a start of what I 
thought to be temper — unholy anger; when 



How TO RETAIN SANCTIFICATION. 207 

I at once said to myself, ' Oh, I must have 
deceived myself after all '; and I have been in 
great perplexity every hour since. I need 
your counsel." I inquired, ''Was there any 
instant in which you consciously let go of 
Christ?" ''No." "Did you for an instant 
abandon yourself to the feeling, 'This is too 
bad, and I won't bear it!'" "Oh no," she 
said, "it was simply a sudden start of my 
mind in opposition to the interruption, and I 
was instantly seized with a great fear that the 
feeling had been sinful." "How long did this 
feeling that you feared was sinful last?" "Oh, 
I suppose not more than a second or two." 
' ' When it had passed, you felt sad ? Was 
this sadness of the nature of guilt, or of sim- 
ple sorrow?" She smiling said, "I didn't 
think of that before ; it was simple sorrow 
lest I had done wrong." " During the hours 
that have since followed to this time, have 
you had a sense of guilt, or only of simple 
sorrow?" She replied with evident joy, "I 
see it all : it was only sudden and violent 
temptation, followed immediately by accusa- 
tion." She went on her way rejoicing. What 
is true of sudden and violent temptation to 



2o8 Gous Method with Man, 

anger may happen with any other form of 
temptation to sin. 

First of all keep to God's order. I 
wish further to make one general but em- 
phatic remark. I wish to lay it down, then, 
as the thing first, last, and always to be kept 
in mind, that whosoever would maintain a 
constant sense of present personal purity 
must see to it that he do not depart from the 
order of God, that he be not drawn away 
from his particular post of duty. ''God has 
his plan for every man." Every man is prac- 
tically strong in proportion as he is a worker 
together with God, as he works on God's 
lines, and employs methods of God's choos- 
ing. If you break from the order of God 
you will find yourself strangely deprived of 
the power to work, strangely destitute of 
peace and rest, and strangely exposed to the 
power of the enemy. No prescription that I 
can lay down in this book for your case will 
be of any practical value to you until you 
shall have put yourself back again into your 
place. In the body of Christ you are now a 
bone out of joint; and you not only can not 
be used, but you are really doomed to con- 



Ho W TO RE TAIN SANCTIFICA TION, 2 09 

tinual pain, and to consume a portion of the 
vitality of the whole Church until the disloca- 
tion shall be reduced. But to return: one of 
Satan's favorite devices is to suggest — 

**It is a Mistake. Your mental exercises 
were mere excitement of the imagination." 
This temptation often comes with force to one 
newly saved, especially when, as sometimes 
occurs, the emotions become suddenly de- 
pressed. Again, it is suggested, *'It can not 
be that so great a change has been wrought 
in so short a time" — thus ignoring the fact 
that this change, wherever wrought at all, is 
wrought by the power of God, who accom- 
plishes his ends with equal ease in a longer or 
briefer period. At another time the insinua- 
tion is, ''The general current of your thoughts 
and emotions is not materially changed;" by 
which the enemy seeks adroitly to change the 
real test of your spiritual condition from the 
quality of your dispositions, motives and pur- 
poses to the measure of your emotions. 
There are times when the cares of business 
or domestic life are heavy, when providence 
seems to frown, or health fails, or heavy 
losses come, or when the soul is in heaviness 

14 



210 GoD's Method with Man, 

through manifold temptations. Satan is wont, 
whenever any one of these depressing facts is 
present, to assail the soul with this sugges- 
tion, *'It is a mistake." 

You HAVE LOST IT. A favoHte method 
with the tempter is to come very suddenly 
on the soul with the suggestion, '*You have 
lost it." This assault generally comes when 
the attention is occupied with some absorb- 
ing matter, and when consequently the heart 
is not particularly stirred with any religious 
emotion. Persons who had a great deal of 
emotion at the time of receiving the witness 
of perfect love, are much exposed to this form 
of attack. The accusation is not founded on 
any particular act of alleged sinfulness, but 
solely on the fact that the emotions are not 
now such as to justify the belief in one's pres- 
ent inward purity. 

Sometimes the same temptation is brought 
in by another method. A violent temptation 
to commit some sin — often a terrible sin — is 
thrust quickly into the mind, and of course 
is rejected with horror. But instantly the 
tempter shifts his position, and turns accuser. 
**How now about holiness? Give it up. It is 



How TO RETAIN SANCTIFICATION. 211 

contemptible for a man with such thoughts to 
try to make himself beheve his heart pure." 
Thus he contrives adroitly to found one temp- 
tation upon another, that he may entangle the 
believer, and induce him to cast away his 
confidence. I do not know that this identi- 
cal device of Satan is what St. Peter alludes 
to when he speaks of *' manifold tempta- 
tions;" but I do know that during the early 
weeks after my soul found perfect love, I was 
brought, again and again, into heaviness and 
perplexity by these assaults. 

**What ought I to do with the suggestion, 
* You have lost it?' " I asked of many who had 
been in the way before me. Generally, I was 
told, ''You must not stand to reason with 
the adversary, but say 'Get thee behind me, 
Satan.'" "But," I replied, "it is supposa- 
ble that I may have lost it, and in such case 
the voice that I hear is not that of Satan, but 
of the Holy Spirit; and I certainly am not 
warranted in the use of any such language 
till I know it is Satan that speaks." My ad- 
visers could make no further reply; and so I 
got no light. The queries arose so frequently 
as to what was my state, that my mind was 



2 12 GoD's Method with Man. 

kept much of the time, more or less harassed 
and perplexed. I came to see that these in- 
terior debates over my own condition con- 
sumed my time, diverted my attention from 
the work of God, and weakened my hold on 
Christ. I came to see that what I needed, 
was some expedient equally proper to be em- 
ployed, whether I had or had not lost the 
blessing. This I found to be an instant 
reconsecration of myself to God whenever 
the suggestion came. After this was done, 
and my spirit was at rest from the agita- 
tion, I almost invariably found that it was 
mere temptation by the accuser of the breth- 
ren. But whether so or not, I reaped the 
benefit of a renewed dedication. I soon ac- 
quired a power to accomplish this renewal of 
my vows to God, in a few moments of time, 
wherever I might be when assailed ; and it 
was not long before that particular form of 
attack ceased. It seemed to me that Satan be- 
came discouraged with using a device which 
invariably resulted in bringing me nearer to 
God. 

'^ Do n't profess it/* Satan knows you 
can never retain the blessing of perfect love, 



Ho W TO RE TAIN SANCTIFICA TION, 2 1 3 

if you refuse to confess what the Lord has 
done and is doing in you. So he plants 
himself squarely in your front, and deter- 
mines if possible to seal your lips. He knows 
if you do not speak, you are not committed, 
and the bridges are all sound behind you for 
a retreat. He knows God's great method for 
propagating Gospel experiences in general, 
and full salvation in particular, is by testi- 
mony. He means to induce you to break 
the order of God, and put yourself at cross 
purposes with him. When one thing in our 
relations with God is out of joint, the evil 
soon multiplies and extends itself to the soul's 
mortal hurt. Therefore, boldly, humbly, fre- 
quently, modestly, in the sober use of Bible 
phrase, declare what God has done and is do- 
ing for you. Be especially careful and exact- 
ing with yourself touching this duty, where 
you have reason to believe that the doctrine 
of holiness is unpopular; and that the pro- 
fession of heart purity may bring on you crit- 
icism. In this, as in every thing else, your 
policy must be to inure yourself to hardness 
as a good soldier. Your testimony where the 
doctrine is unpopular may be of more value 



2 14 GoD's Method with Man. 

than it could be in any other place. Just 
there, perhaps, Christ is betrayed by his pro- 
fessed friends; and very likely some of the 
Lord's little ones are suffering for just the 
testimony which you alone dare give or can 
give. I must be emphatic at this point ; your 
testimony is invaluable for the enlightenment 
and encouragement of those about you. And 
what it is your duty to do on their account 
is equally important on your own. **He that 
watereth shall be watered also himself.'* It 
is probable that of the persons who have once 
enjoyed heart purity, and have lost their light, 
more have begun to decline at this point than 
at any other. Here Satan comes as an angel 
of light. He whispers a great deal about pru- 
dence, and modesty, and humility,- and about 
casting pearls before swine. But his object is 
to shut the mouth of one of God's witnesses, 
and so keep you from bearing a valuable tes- 
timony to the power of Jesus to save his peo- 
ple from their sins. 

There are many persons who seem to have 
little light on this subject; they are easily 
snared, and so robbed of their power. They 
seem to forget that the Gospel is sustained 



Ho W TO RE TAIN SaNCTIFICA TION. 2 1 5 

and extended in the earth, not by its philos- 
ophy, nor by argument, but by testimony. 
It claims to be the power of God unto salva- 
tion. If it be, it must succeed ; if it be not, 
it must fail. How is the question to be de- 
cided? Obviously by testimony; by no other 
means possibly. God serves the grand sub- 
poena on his Church, and says, *' Ye are my 
witnesses." Take the stand and speak plain 
for Jesus and his Gospel ; for the verdict of 
the world hangs on what *' deponent saith/' 
and the salvation of the world hangs on her 
own verdict. Satan whispers, *' Do n't say a 
word, let your life speak;'' but he knows if 
you withhold your testimony your life will 
soon cease to speak. He knows also that if 
you could live a blameless holy life before 
men all your days, nothing could be known 
of your real interior state unless you tell it. 
Men, who live under the Gospel, are able to 
achieve all the moralities without any meas- 
ure of personal salvation through grace at all. 
Salvation in all its grades is a great interior 
fact ; and if it is to be known abroad, must 
be stated in words by the man that has it. 
The testimony is to be weighed by the rules 



2i6 GoD's Method with Man. 

of evidence; and of course the character of 
the Avitness is a chief factor in the question of 
the weight of his testimony. 

The Case of Cltnicus. CHnicus has a dis- 
ease, supposed to be incurable. He resorts to 
many physicians, and is nothing better, but 
rather grows worse. His friends tell him of 
Dr. Joshua, who never lost a patient in these 
parts. He sends, and the doctor comes and 
works a speedy cure. The man is soon well 
and strong. What now? shall he tell it? 
*'No,'' say all the quacks in the community. 
**If you are well, let the fact speak for itself. 
Don't talk about it, and especially don't say 
you have entirely recovered your health and 
strength; and don't speak of Dr. Joshua in 
connection with your case. It isn't modest 
for a man to boast of his strength; and then, 
if you should get sick again, it would all re- 
act on the doctor, and might nearly ruin his 
practice." Now what will bystanders say of 
the wisdom of these counsels, or of the real 
spirit of the counselors towards Dr. Joshua ? 
Will any unprejudiced man commit the blun- 
der of believing that these counselors are the 
friends of Dr. Joshua ? And as to Clinicus, 



Ho W TO RE TAIN SANCTIFICA TION. 2 1 7 

especially since the doctor has treated him 
gratuitously, does not every right-minded man 
feel that surely justice, honor, and gratitude 
unite to say to him, *' Tell it T 

We must not, however, for a moment for- 
get that the testimony to perfect love must 
always owe its weight to the agreement of 
the life of deponent with his testimony. He 
who says on the stand ''Mr. A. is the best 
dealer in his line there is in the city,'' must 
be able to say, on cross-examination, ''I deal 
with Mr. A/' He who publishes Dr. Joshua 
as ''the great physician who has healed me" 
must show a strong arm and a healthy coun- 
tenance. So the man w^ho publishes Jesus 
Christ as his Savior from all sin must show 
by his life that he is saved from all sin. 
While, therefore, it is true that a man who, 
having experienced the blessing of perfect 
love, refuses to declare what God has done 
for him, defrauds the Church of a valuable 
testimony, and brings darkness upon his own 
soul, it is also true that he who persists in the 
testimony while his life contradicts his words 
commits a much greater offense, both against 
the Church and his own soul. 



2i8 GoD's Method with Man. 



Chapter XIX. 

MILITANT SPIRIT OF THE GOSPEL, 

PERSONS who have newly entered into 
the experience of perfect love are apt 
to seek counsel of older ones, on the ques- 
tion, *' How can I retain this precious grace ?'* 
The foregoing notices of the devices of Sa- 
tan, and the better methods for meeting and 
overcoming them, may, I hope, answer a 
purpose of some value to beginners, as far as 
they apply. Before I talk further of the care 
and treatment of the soul, I propose to call 
attention to the aggressive genius of the Gos- 
pel itself; as this is precisely what must shape 
the policy of every man who would make his 
life a complete dedication to its ends. 

Religion behind a wall. The Mosaic re- 
ligion was religion behind a wall, entrenched, 
conservative, defensive. The policy was to 
preserve alive in a particular nation of man- 
kind the true ethical teaching and theology, 
with institutions to that end, till Messiah 



Militant Spirit of the Gospel. 219 

should come. There was no provision in the 
institutes of Moses for self-propagation ; only, 
*'Thou shalt diligently teach them to thy 
children/' There is no command to go forth 
among the heathen for the purpose of in- 
structing them in the Hebrew faith. A stran- 
ger that came to dwell among the Israelites 
might in some instances take part in their 
devotional services. Thus (Deut. 31: 11, 12), 
**When all Israel is come to appear before 
the Lord thy God, in the place which he 
shall choose, thou shalt read this law before 
all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people 
together, men and women and children, and 
thy stranger that is within thy gates, that 
they may hear, and that they may learn, and 
fear the Lord your God, and observe to do 
all the words of this law." Again, when 
Joshua gathered the people between the two 
mountains, Gerizim and Ebal, to hear the 
pronouncement of the conditional blessings 
and curses of the law, the stranger in the as- 
sembly was as he that was born among them 
(see Josh. 8 : 33). But this was all mere tol- 
erance of the stranger w^ho temporarily re- 
sided in their country. 



220 GoD's Method with Man, 

How THE OLD NATIONS GOT THE LIGHT. 

True, God did take measures to make known 
the true religion, or rather to make himself 
known as the true God, among outside na- 
tions. The miraculous overthrow of Jericho, 
the feats of Samson, and the victories ot 
Gideon and Jephthah, had each an impressive 
lesson for the tribes and nations about. The 
miraculous descent of manna for forty years 
could not fail to reach and impress all peoples 
of the earth : and the royal proclamations con- 
sequent on the piety of Daniel and his friends, 
and on the fidelity of Mordecai and Esther, 
were, in their measure, authoritative publica- 
tions of the religion of the Hebrews in all 
the earth. Thus God's truth did go abroad 
among men ; and no nation or people was left 
without the true light. Of this fact the com- 
ing of the wise men from the far East to 
Jerusalem, upon the occasion of the birth of 
Christ, is a striking illustration. Neverthe- 
less it remains true, that the Hebrew State 
Church was not at all missionary in its charac- 
ter. There were provisions, indeed, by which 
foreigners might become incorporated into 
their Church and nation; but there was no 



Militant Spirit of the Gospel. 221 

man nor class of men among them whose 
duty it was to seek to magnify the nation by 
such incorporation. 

Religion armed for conquest. Now 
Christianity reverses all this. Its whole pol- 
icy is aggressive. Men come within its pale, 
not because of birth in a certain nation, but 
in virtue of the new birth by the Holy Ghost. 
Every man who is a Christian has been con- 
quered to the obedience of Christ by the 
power of the Gospel — that is, the power of 
love; and every man brought to Christ is 
charged with the duty of bringing another 
man. ** Ye are the salt of the earth. Ye are 
the light of the world,'' says Jesus. **Go ye 
into all the world, and preach the Gospel to 
every creature." Every thing in Christianity 
is on the principle of self-propagation. It is 
taught in the parable of the sower, in the 
parable of the mustard seed, and in the para- 
ble of the leaven in the meal. The system 
was formally inaugurated in the presence of 
men from every nation under heaven ; and 
these men, thousands of whom were con- 
verted at Pentecost, went each soon to his 
own country and home, to publish among 



2 22 GoD's Method with Man. 

his countrymen the Gospel of the Son of 
God. Christianity does not stand upon the 
defensive, but pushes with its horns. It is 
not religion housed and sheltered, but religion 
armed, in the field, and marching to conquest. 
Every man an apostle. This aggressive 
genius of the Gospel must be constantly held 
in view by any man who would maintain a 
steady Gospel experience of any grade. He 
that pursues a simple conservative policy with 
a New Testament experience will be likely 
soon to find that he has no experience to con- 
serve. '* He that will save his life shall lose 
it.'* The spirit with which God endows a 
soul entirely devoted to him is eminently this 
aggressive spirit of the Gospel, according to 
which every man is constrained to be an apos- 
tle for the propagation of whatever of God's 
truth has been incorporated into his own 
soul life. 

In the primitive Church every body 
preached. On the day of Pentecost ' * they 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and 
began to speak with other tongues, as the 
Spirit gave them utterance." Later, it is said, 
''And at that time there was a great perse- 



Militant Spirit of the Gospel. 223 

ciition against the Church which was at Jeru- 
salem ; and they were all scattered abroad 
throughout the regions of Judea and Sama- 
ria, except the apostles/' '^Therefore they 
that were scattered abroad went every-where 
preaching the word.'' Who were these? Lay- 
men, every one ; and for the most part, new 
converts as well. Further on, it is said, 
*' Now they that were scattered abroad, upon 
the persecution that arose about Stephen, trav- 
eled as far as Phenice" (a country lying along 
the coast of Palestine, including Tyre and 
Sidon), '*and Cyprus" (an island of the Med- 
iterranean), **and Antioch " (a city of Syria 
three hundred and fifty miles north of Jerusa- 
salem), ** preaching the word to none but 
unto the Jews only." 

It is the great feature of the New Testa- 
jment religion that every disciple is, by virtue 
of the fact, a propagandist. In saying this I 
do not mean to imply that all are expected 
in the same sense to preach the Gospel ; that 
is, to expound the Word of God, or to digest 
Bible teachings into formulated discourse. 
Still these laymen did all preach, according 
to the true fundamental meaning of the word; 



224 Gods Method with Man. 

to cry in public, to make known, to say. 
They proclaimed with ^reat earnestness the 
salvation they had found through Jesus Christ 
the Messiah. Tliis preaching of the laymen, 
this proclamation everywhere of salvation 
through Christ, and by every one that has 
found him, is, if the Church will but know 
it, the right arm of her power. I speak the 
conviction of my innermost soul when I say, 
the Church can better spare the learned disser- 
tations of the pulpit by an ordained clergy 
than the living, glowing testimony of her 
saved men and women. Again, I say, it is 
not mainly, not largely by dint of erudite dis- 
course, or by logic or philosophy, but by tes- 
timony, th.it the Gospel is. and ever has been 
sustained in the earth. When a credible wit- 
ness declares it as a fact within his own knowl- 
edge that Jesus Christ can and does save, he 
gives a testimony exactly in point to prove 
that the Gospel is the power of God unto 
salvation. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit 
— the very soul and essence — of prophecy — 
of all teaching. 

Conform to your dispensation. Your 
policy, therefore, in seeking to retain in all its 



Militant Spirit of the Gospel. 225 

clearness and fullness, the witness of perfect 
love must keep you exactly to God's order — 
tell it. Preach it. Don't wait in demure 
silence till the occasion shall arise for defend- 
ing yourself against assault, human or Satanic. 
Make the assault yourself Move on the ene- 
my's works. Drive in, in the fullness of love, 
and in the name of Jesus Christ, who bought 
this world in agony and blood. Sin has no 
right that a Christian is bound to respect. 
Do n't try to coax the world to let you alone. 
Don't let // alone. The friendship of the 
world is enmity with God. Be prudent in 
God's sense, as scrupulously abstaining from 
evil and from all appearance of evil ; but not 
at all in the sense of a worldly policy. This 
would bid you pause on the threshold of 
ever)'' path of duty, and inquire, How is this 
line of action to tell on my domestic peace, 
or comfort, or on my fame, or on my pros- 
pects of future preferment and favor among 
men ? 

Remember, then, jou belong to an ag- 
gressive Church, a Church organized to con- 
quer. Christians are accosted and treated as 
soldiers. Success is to be achieved, not in 

15 



226 Gods Me i hod with Man. 

camp life, but in the march and the struggle. 
Your joys are to be the joys of progress, 
achievement, conquest. Even your safety is 
closely connected with your activity, and your 
spiritual life will be wonderfully stimulated by 
your efforts to extend that life to others. 



Baptisms of the Holy Ghost. 227 



Chapter XX. 

FREQUENT BAPTISMS OF THE HOLY GHOST, 

BUT the great fact that conserves the ex- 
perience of perfect love is the perpetual 
commerce of the soul with God. Purity can 
not be retained if the spirit of prayer and 
aspiration after God be allowed to decline. 
Every person who has come into the posses- 
sion of perfect love will find his chief danger 
to lie in the imperceptible approach of a spirit 
of indifference. We must, from time to time, 
seek new baptisms of love, and light, and 
power. A soul kept in fair spiritual health 
will demand these, as the body its meals. 
Rev. Henry Belden has well expressed the 
truth on this subject. Hear him: 

** Frequent Baptisms of the Holy Ghost. 
The Holy Ghost is our Enlightener, Sancti- 
fier, and Comforter. If, therefore, Ave have 
light, holiness, and comfort, it must be by 
his agency, and our possession of these bless- 
ings is a matter of consciousness. I suppose 



228 GoD's Method with Man. 

the only way in Avhich we are or can be con- 
scious of the presence of the Holy Spirit, is 
by being conscious of the effects produced by 
him. As *the wind bloweth where it listeth 
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst 
not tell whence it cometh and whither it go- 
eth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit/ 
We know of the presence of the Spirit just 
as w^e are conscious of the presence of the 
wind, by the effects produced. We know the 
Holy Spirit by trying his fruits or influences 
by his own written Word. 

'*The more marked, frequent, and impress- 
ive the influences of the Spirit upon us, so is 
the likelihood of our walking in his ways. 
^'I make the following distinctions: 
** I. All Christians have the Spirit, 
*'2. All established and abiding Christians 
are filled with the Spirit. 

** 3. Baptisms of the Spirit are refreshings, 
quickenings, spiritual holy impulses given at 
any stage of the Christian life. 

'* These baptisms are, and from the nature 
of the case must be, occasional. We find in 
the constitution of our being a tendency to 
reaction after any excitement. The impres- 



Baptisms of the Holy Ghost 229 

sions first produced decrease after a time, and 
though a permanent effect in some respects 
does remain, yet the impulsive and quicken- 
ing effect dies away. This is true in fact ; 
and the rule holds good in relation to bap- 
tisms of the Spirit, just the same as to any 
other excitements. If this were generally un- 
derstood and properly considered, it would 
relieve many from perplexities. When Chris- 
tians have had their sensibilities wrought up 
to a high degree of excitement, and they find 
the tide of emotion running out, they ought 
not to consider it an indication of backsliding 
and thereby fall into fear and unbelief. Let 
them still trust Jesus while their perceptive 
and sensitive faculties rest for a while. 

**The Holy Ghost may, without leaving 
us, so withhold the manifestations of himself 
that for a time we have no consciousness of 
his presence; yet he never really departs 
from us w^hile we adhere to the Lord Jesus. 
His apparent withdrawment is a trial, and if 
rightly viewed it may be a means of greatly 
strengthening our faith. 

*'I have been blessed with many baptisms 
of the Spirit. Some of them have been of a 



230 GoD's Method with Man. 

remarkable character. In every instance, so 
far as I can remember, they have been imme- 
diately connected with a clear perception of 
some particular truths, revealed to me then 
for the first time, or more clearly revealed 
than before; and such baptisms were always 
followed by an increase of purity and spirit- 
ual joy. 

**In all cases, after a time longer or shorter, 
the impulse of these baptisms was gone. They 
left me with increased knowledge, and en- 
larged experience, and greater susceptibility 
to heavenly influences. Then, after a season 
of quiet, I would feel a conscious need of 
another quickening. I would seek for it, and 
I obtained it whenever I sought for it perse- 
veringly. 

''After long-continued observation, I not 
only found that the experience of many es- 
teemed Christians was similar to my own, but 
I could not find an}^ who had been long in 
the way essentially differing from it. I at- 
tended a number of 'holiness meetings' for 
years together, and I observed that dear saints 
who walked in the light were, at times, won- 
derfully quickened, so that their words and 



Baptisms of the Holy Ghost. 231 

every thing about them had a peculiar spirit- 
ual power. Then, after a time, this special 
quickening would seem gradually to subside, 
and though they still walked in the light, 
and their earnest, consistent lives commended 
them to all, it was evident they were not im- 
pelled as before by the baptism ; that is, their 
appearance did not continue to exhibit the 
same glow and deep fervor. The unusual 
elevation of feeling had subsided. 

* 'After I had been familiar with these con- 
siderations for some years, I was interested in 
the testimony of a very eminent servant of 
God, who, speaking upon this subject with 
the advantage of a long experience and much 
thought, said, ' Such baptisms (of the Spirit) 
need to be often repeated to keep the current 
of spiritual life glowing strongly.' 

**This testimony, and similar ones from 
others whom I know to be greatly blessed 
of God, and some other and more marked 
experiences in my own spiritual life, and a 
comparison of all w^ith the Scriptures, con- 
firmed me in the belief, not only that fre- 
quent baptisms of the Spirit are necessary 
and obtainable, but that God does in fact 



232 Govs Method with Man. 

carry on the spiritual life of his children by- 
means of them. 

*' Looking over a number of past years, I 
can say that since I have learned these things, 
whenever I have felt a deep conviction that I 
needed a new baptism of the Spirit, and have 
steadily waited on God for it, pleading the 
promises which refer to it, I have never failed 
in a single instance to receive what I sought. 
I have sought in prayer, peacefully and per- 
sistently, making frequent, but usually brief 
and quiet supplications, often using but a few 
words, and not regarding it necessary or de- 
sirable to get into anxiety or impatience. 
Sometimes the answer has been given after 
a few days, and sometimes after a few weeks. 
In every instance it was my purpose to con- 
tinue seeking till I should obtain, and, as I 
have said, I never failed to prove by sweet 
experience that my Heavenly Father is more 
willing to give his Spirit to them that ask 
him than we are to give good gifts to our 
children. It is of importance to add, that in 
some cases the answer to my prayer has been 
given gradually, and I have realized that the 
blessed Holy Spirit was coming upon me by 



Baptisms of the Holy Ghost 233 

degrees, more and more, for several days. 
At first the spiritual refreshing and energiz- 
ing would be comparatively gentle and in 
small degree, and then, from time to time, 
the waters of life would come welling up in 
greater and still greater fullness. 

^'I am glad to say these things for the en- 
couragement of any who feel their need of a 
baptism of the Spirit, and I say them because 
I am assured of their truth. 

*'Let me add a w^ord concerning two mis- 
takes which are made in reference to this 
matter : 

**i. The first is, the idea which seems to 
have settled down upon the minds of some who 
have been brought into an experience of pu- 
rity, that after receiving that experience they 
steadily abide there without any further bap- 
tisms of the Spirit. The difficulty w^ith such 
persons is, that they have the idea of resting 
in a state of holiness, instead of resting in 
Christ; and thus failing to look to Christ 
alone, they inevitably sink into a state of 
deadness and formality. The baptisms of the 
Spirit bring us into the immediate recogni- 
tion of Christ, and their frequent repetition 



234 GoD's Method with Man. 

is needful both for our own spiritual life and 
our fruitfulness in our Master's service. 

^'2. The other error is one of distrust or 
anxiety, and this oftentimes in connection 
with an undue desire for self-gratification. 
Christians not satisfied with their own expe- 
rience desire a baptism of the Spirit to set 
them at rest and make them happy. These 
baptisms of the Spirit are not given for that 
purpose. The written Word is given for that. 
If we believe the Word, we shall enter into 
rest, and every desire for the baptism of the 
Spirit, to enable us to believe^ is an undervalu- 
ing and despising of the Word which God 
* has magnified above all his name.' 

**When we seek for the Spirit it should 
never be merely for our own gratification, but 
that we may be made Christ-like and fruitful 
to the glory of God.'' 

The foregoing remarks of brother Belden 
are of great intrinsic excellence, and of great 
practical importance to every one who would 
maintain a steady walk in the way of holiness. 
I desire, however, further to emphasize a 
truth which he incidentally mentions. If there 
be no real retrograde movement of the soul be- 



Baptisms of the Holy Ghost. 235 

tween these special gracious visitations, there 
IS always an experience in connection with 
each successive coming of the Spirit which 
places the soul in a new position beyond what 
it had ever reached before. There is either 
more love, or more light, or more power, or 
deeper humiliation of soul before God; or, as 
it sometimes happens, all the gracious affec- 
tions are wonderfully intensified. I believe 
these baptisms do almost invariably bring 
new spiritual illumination. I think, also, that 
with rare exceptions, they shut the soul up 
to a narrower path at some point, and not 
infrequently set before the mind some new 
and special work or errand for God. 

There are many passages of Scripture 
which, especially when taken in their higher 
signification, evidently relate to the various 
states and experiences of the soul beyond the 
point where it attains to mere purification 
from vileness. These passages may be con- 
veniently classified as follows : 

I. Stability. Col. i: 23, ''Continue in 
the faith grounded and settled, and be not 
moved away from the hope of the Gospel.'' 
I Thess. 3 : 13, *'To the end he may stab- 



236 GoD's Method with Man, 

lish your hearts unblamable in holiness be- 
fore God." 2 Thess. 2: 16, 17, **Now our 
Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our 
Father . . . comfort your hearts and stab- 
lish you in every good word and work.'* 
Again, chap. 3 : 3, '*But the Lord is faith- 
ful, who shall stablish you and keep you from 
evil." Eph. 3: 17, ''That ye being rooted 
and grounded in love." 

2. Strength, Eph. 3 : 16, ''To be strength- 
ened with might by his Spirit in the inner 
man." Eph. 3 : 20, "Now unto him that is 
able to do exceeding abundantly above all 
that we ask or think, according to the power 
that worketh in us." Eph. 6: 10, "Finally, 
my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the 
power of his might." Col. I : ii, "Strength- 
ened with all might, according to his glorious 
power, unto all patience and long suffering 
with joyfulness. " Col. 2: 7, "Rooted and 
built up in him, and stablished in faith, as 
ye have been taught, abounding therein with 
thanksgiving." Rom. 16: 25, " Now to him 
that is of power to stablish you according to 
my Gospel," etc. Jude 24, "Now unto him 
that is able to keep you from falling, and to 



Baptisms of the Holy Ghost. 237 

present you faultless before the presence of 
his glory with exceeding joy/' etc. Eph. 
i: 19, ''And what is the exceeding great- 
ness of his power to usward who believe, ac- 
cording to the working of his mighty power.'' 

3. Light. Eph. 3: 18, 19, ''That ye may 
be able to comprehend with all saints what 
is the breadth, and length, and depth, and 
height, and to know the love of Christ, which 
passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled 
with all the fullness of God.'' i Cor. 2 : 9, 10, 
"But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart 
of man, the things which God hath prepared 
for them that love him. But God hath re- 
vealed them unto us by his Spirit; for the 
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep 
things of God." 

4. Love. Eph. 3: 17, "That ye, being 
rooted and grounded in love." And verse 
19, "And to know the love of Christ which 
passeth knowledge. " i John 4: 16, "God is 
love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth 
in God, and God in him." 

5. Humility. Eph. 4: 2, "With all low- 
liness and meekness, with long suffering, for- 



238 GoD's Method with Man. 

bearing one another in love/' Acts 5 : 41, 
**And they [the disciples] departed from the 
presence of the council, rejoicing that they 
were counted worthy to suffer shame for his 
name/' i Pet. 3:4, *'But let it [namely, 
your adorning] be , the hidden man of the 
heart, in that which is not corruptible, even 
the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, 
which is in the sight of God of great price/' 

6. When the Scriptures speak of the Church 
as the body of Christ, they seem to refer to 
this ineffable exaltation and union with Christ, 
this character representative of him possible 
to the members, and in God's intent belong- 
ing to them. Eph. i : 22, 23, **To be the 
head over all things to the Church, which is 
his body, the fullness of him that filleth all 
in all." I Cor. 12 : 27, ''Now ye are the 
body of Christ, and members in particular." 
Col. I : 24, '*I . . . now rejoice in my 
sufferings for you, and fill up that which is 
behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh 
for his body's sake, which is the Church." 

7. Christians are to be an honor to Christ, 
.1 Cor. 6: 20, ''For ye are bought with a 
price: therefore, glorify God in your body 



Baptisms of the Holy Ghost. 239 

and in your spirit, which are God's.'*. Eph. 
3: 21, '*Unto him [God] be glory in the 
Church by Christ Jesus." 2 Thess. i : 12, 
*'That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ 
may be glorified in you." i Pet. 4: 14, 
*'For the Spirit of glory and of God resteth 
upon you : on their part he is evil spoken of, 
but on your part he is glorified." Col. i : :o, 
**That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto 
all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, 
and increasing in the knowledge of God." 

8. Irreproachableness, Col. i : 22, ''To pre- 
sent you holy and unblamable and unreproach- 
able in his sight." Eph. 5: 27, ''That he 
might present it to himself a glorious Church, 
not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such 
thing ; but that it should be holy and with- 
out blemish." Heb. 13: 20, 21, " Now the 
God of peace, that brought again from the 
dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd 
of the sheep, through the blood of the ever- 
lasting Covenant, make 3^ou perfect in every 
good work to do his will, working in you 
that which is well pleasing in his sight, 
through Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory for- 
ever and ever. Amen." 



240 GoD's Method with Man. 

9. Grace according to God's riches. Eph. 
3 : 16, ''That he would grant you according 
to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened 
with might by his Spirit in the inner man/' 
John I : 16, ** And of his fullness have all we 
received, and grace for grace." Eph. 4: 13, 
''Till we all come in the unity of the faith, 
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the 
stature of the fullness of Christ." Phil. 4: 19, 
*'But my God shall supply all your need 
according to his riches in glory by Christ 
Jesus." Eph. 2: 7, "That in the ages to 
come he might show the exceeding riches of 
his grace, in his kindness toward us, through 
Christ Jesus." 

10. Exaltation of character, i John 4: 17, 
''That we may have boldness in the day of 

judgment: because as he is, so are we in this 
world." 2 Cor. 10: 4, 5, "For the weapons 
of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty 
through God to the pulling down of strong- 
holds; casting down imaginations, and every 
high thing that exalteth itself against the 
knowledge of God, and bringing into captiv- 
ity every thought to the obedience of Christ." 



Baptisms of the Holy Ghost 241 

2 Cor. 3: 18, ''But we all, with open face 
beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, 
are changed into the same image from glory- 
to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.*' 

1 John 3 : I, ''That we should be called the 
sons of God : therefore, the world knoweth 
us not, because it knew him not.'* 

1 1 . Man may partake of tite nature of God, 

2 Pet. I : 4, "Partakers of the divine na- 
ture." Eph. 3: 17, That Christ may dwell 
in your hearts by faith." John 14: 23, "If 
a man love me, he will keep my words : and 
my Father will love him, and we will come 
unto him, and make our abode with him." 
Heb. 3: 14, "For we are made partakers 
of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our 
confidence steadfast unto the end." Heb. 
6: 4, 5, "And have tasted of the heavenly 
gift, and were made partakers of the Holy 
Ghost, and have tasted the good word of 
God, and the powers of the world to come." 
Heb. 12: 10, "That we might be partakers 
of his holiness." Eph. 2: 21, 22, "In whom 
all the building fitly framed together groweth 
unto a holy temple in the Lord : in whom ye 
also are builded together for a habitation of 

16 



242 GoD's Method with Man, 

God through the Spirit/* Eph. 3: 19, **That 
ye might be filled with all the fullness of 
God." 

Doubtless many of the foregoing Scriptures 
may be applied to every state of religious ex- 
perience; and some of them may even have 
their primary reference to incipient states of 
grace. But most of them are more naturally 
applicable to the experiences of the soul be- 
yond the attainment of purity; and several of 
them seem incapable of being understood as 
having any other reference. It will be ob- 
served that none of them contain any allusion 
to mere purity; although they obviously ex- 
press great excellence of godly character. 
Their point is not purity: it can not be less 
than purity : therefore, it must be more. The 
man who ponders them may not always know 
what peculiar bestowment of grace is stored 
for him in the meaning of each ; but he will 
be certainly more and more deeply impressed 
with the words of Jesus, ' * I am come that 
they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly.'' 

Progress in grace, after the blessing of 
purity is reached, is not represented in the 



Baptisms of the Holy Ghost 243 

Scriptures as a succession of separate and dis- 
tinct states along Avhich a believer moves, out 
of one into the next. They rather present 
the matter under the idea of an increase of 
light and power, with the deepening and en- 
riching of the whole character. The attain- 
ment of heart purity is, and must be held to 
be, a distinct epoch in the Christian life. It 
is the point up to which all grace received per- 
forms the office of saving, and beyond which 
it performs the office of endowing. 

To whatever point a man may have trav- 
eled in Christian experience, it still always re- 
mains true that one retrograde step will carry 
the soul back into condemnation. Neverthe- 
less, it is true that immediate repentance for 
such step will restore the soul to the position 
forfeited. I have known cases where a mo- 
mentary lapse has been followed by such 
deep contrition and brokenness of heart, such 
groaning in the spirit with strong crying and 
tears, that the recovery was accompanied by 
even new measures of light and power. 



244 Gons Method with Man. 



Chapter XXL 

A DREAM, 

I HEARD a man relate his dream as fol- 
lows : It was a time of revival. The 
Church wore an aspect of thrift and pros- 
perity. I was joyous in my work. My ser- 
mons and exhortations were telling on my 
hearers. The whole community was moved by 
the prevailing excitement; and as the work 
went on, I had been drawn into exhausting 
labors. Seeking rest I soon lost myself in a 
sort of half forgetful state, though I seemed 
fully aware of place and surroundings. Sud- 
denly a stranger entered the room without 
ceremony. I saw in his face benignity, intel- 
ligence and weight of character ; but though 
he was passably well attired, he carried sus- 
pended about his person in one way and 
another, a variety of weights, measures, im- 
plements and chemical agents, which gave 
him a very strange appearance. 



f" A Dream. 245 

He addressed me with the question, **How 
IS your zeal?" I supposed when he began his 
question, that it was to be of my health ; but 
was pleased to hear its final word; for I was 
quite well pleased with my zeal, and doubted 
not the stranger would smile when he should 
know its proportions. Instantly I conceived 
of it as a physical quantity, and brought it 
forth and presented it to him for inspection. 
He placed it in his scales, and I heard him 
say, ''One Hundred.'' I could scarcely re- 
press an audible note of satisfaction ; but I 
caught his earnest look as he noted down the 
weight, and I saw at once that he had drawn 
no final conclusion, but was intent on push- 
ing his investigation. He broke the mass to 
atoms, and put the whole in his crucible into 
the fire. When it was thoroughly fused, he 
took it out and set it down to cool. It 
congealed in cooling, and when turned out 
on the hearth exhibited a series of layers or 
strata which all, at the touch of the ham- 
mer, fell apart. Each part was then tested 
and weighed, and a minute note taken. When 
lie had finished he presented the notes to me, 
with a look of compassion, and saying, ''May 



lO 


parts. 


23 




19 




15 




14 




12 





246 GoD's Method with Man. ^^ 

God save you/' left the room. I opened the 
notes, and read as follows : 

ANALYSIS OF THE ZEAL OF THE PASTOR AT , HE 

BEING A CANDIDATE FOR A CROWN OF GLORY. 

Weight in mass, .... 100. 

Of this, on analysis there proves to be 

Bigotry 

Personal ambition, 

Love of salary, 

Pride of denomination, 

Pride of talent. 

Love of authority, 

Love to God, 4 \ , ,, 

Love to man, 3 J P"'^ zeai,_^ ^^ 

I had become troubled at the peculiar man- 
ner of the stranger, and especially at his part- 
ing look and words : but when I looked at 
the figures my heart sank as lead within me. 
I made a mental effort to dispute the record, 
but was suddenly startled into a more honest 
mood by an audible sigh — almost a groan — 
from the stranger, who had paused in the 
hall, and by a sudden darkness that was fall- 
ing upon me, by which the record became 
at once obscured and nearly illegible. I sud- 
denly cried out, '^Lord, save me!" throwing 
myself on my knees with the anal3'sis in my 
hand. The record zv as true ! I saw it, I felt it. 



A Dream. 247 

I confessed it, I deplored it; and I besought 
God to save me from myself with many tears, 
and at length with a loud and irrepressible 
cry of anguish. My earnest cry in years be- 
fore had been to be saved from hell; but 
my cry to be saved from myself now was far 
more fervent and distressful: nor did I rest or 
pause till the refining fire came down and 
Avent through my heart, searching, probing, 
melting, burning; filling all its chambers with 
light, and hallowing my whole being to God. 
That light and that love are in my soul to- 
day ; and I bless the Divine Alchemist for 
the revelation that showed me where I stood 
and turned my feet into a higher path. The 
dream was a crisis in my history: and if there 
shall prove to have been, in later years, some 
depth and earnestness in my convictions, and 
some searching and saving pungency in my 
words, I doubt not eternity will show their 
connection with the visit of the Searcher of 
hearts, at whose coming my sins went to 
judgment beforehand, and I was weighed in 
the balances and found wanting. 



248 GoD's Method with Man. 



Chapter XXII. 

THE REFINING FIRE. 

IN the mountain yonder delves the miner, 
in darkness and in dirt. Ever and anon 
there comes forth from his gloomy subterra- 
nean field of labor a load of what might be 
taken for common rock or rusty-looking clay. 
What is it? It is iron. Iron, did you say? 
Yes, iron verily, and iron just as God made 
it when he made the world. What is it good 
for? Practically good for nothing as it is, but 
good to be purified, and wrought, and refined, 
and wrought and refined again, till what now 
seems of so little account shall become serv- 
iceable and valuable. Mark the process. By 
the ton it is thrown into the furnace, where 
it is subjected to such heat as to liquefy the 
rock with which its particles were mingled, 
and it remains in this fiery abyss — this little 
volcano of furious heat, for some hours ; when 
it is drawn forth, partially separated from 
dross, and run into molds. This is iron ; but 



The Repining Fire. 



249 



It is a very different substance from what it 
was when its particles existed each in con- 
nection with some earthy associate. But it 
is capable of only a few uses in its present 
state. // must go into the fine again. 

Broken to pieces with heavy blows, it is 
next thrown, together with certain other sub- 
stances, into an oven, where it is brought 
to a white heat, and kept thus heated for 
several hours; its liquid mass being perpet- 
tually belabored and disturbed by long iron 
crooks passing through it back and forth, till 
under the heat that made it liquid, it ceases 
to be liquid, and comes to the consistence 
of dough. Indeed, the process of puddling, 
of which I speak, is often called cooking; 
and the great balls, scintillating and drip- 
ping forth their liquid cinders in the agony 
of their heat, are thrust at once into a chasm 
between two iron walls, where by the motion 
of the machinery they are rolled and pressed 
with such force that the base ingredients of 
the mass gush forth in streams, while the 
sparks that fly in a fiery shower around, and 
the frequent loud reports as of artillery, pro- 
claim the violence of the treatment by which 



2SO GoD's Method with Man, 

the purifying and ennobling process is going 
on. But before it has time to cool it is passed 
between rollers that press it so severely as 
to elongate it. Again and again it passes 
between them, and at each time through a 
smaller aperture, till it becomes a bar of 
iron, wonderfully unlike what it was when 
mere *'pig iron,'' though not yet fully fit for 
use. It must go into the fire agam! 

Again it is broken into sections of two feet 
or so in length, and the pieces are carefully 
packed together and placed in an oven to be 
heated as before, and then rolled as before. 
When iron of peculiar fineness is to be made, 
the process is repeated a number of times 
more, till what was at first a heap of stones 
or earth in appearance is come to be long, 
straight, beautiful bars of iron, shining much 
like silver. But the refining fire has not yet 
wrought its utmost. To make it into steel it 
must be still further refined, and also carbon- 
ized ; and it may be so wrought while in this 
state, being still more highly refined (always 
by fire), as to be several times more valuable 
than gold coin. A gold dollar will weigh 
down a hundred hair springs. 



The Refining Fire. 251 

Many times I have watched these processes 
of purifying and refining, and always with 
new and deeper thoughts of God's method 
with his people. Think it not strange, O 
my heart, concerning the fiery trial that is to 
try you, as though some strange thing hap- 
pened unto you. **He shall baptize you with 
the Holy Ghost and with fire ; he is like a re- 
finer's fire ; he maketh his ministers a flame 
of fire,'' In such like Scripture grooves my 
thoughts have run, while witnessing the fiery 
ordeal, and its marvelous power to refine 
and exalt the object which it seemed only to 
scorch and torture. Yes, I have said, I see 
it- — I know it well. This is God's iron, just 
as he made it; but God's iron must have 
God" s fire to burn out and purge away its 
dross. Thus must grace, deposited in the 
soul, even as iron in the rock, be rescued 
from all alloy of sinful affection, by the refin- 
ing fire that purges the heart and fits it for all 
heavenly uses. These thundering blasts, this 
heat, these blows and crushing pressures, that 
came like so many successive attacks upon 
the very being of the crude ore from yonder 
heap, were blessings all. To their violence 



252 GoD's Method with Man. 

those bars of steel owe their strength, their 
beauty, and their value. 

See then, my soul, that thou forget not this 
lesson. Shrink not when crosses are heavy 
and sorrows and trials are multiplied. Re- 
fuse not the kind severities of grace. Con- 
sent that the fire be kindled again and again, 
if the Refiner and Purifier of silver so appoint. 
Let me beware of a type of religious life that 
seeks only pleasurable emotions. The grace 
that purifies will certainly probe and burn. 
There is a crucifixion to the world; but 
though it is desirable to be dead to sin, it is 
hard to die ; and in God's method there is a 
death before every life. There is a baptism 
of fire; I at times long for the blessings it 
alone can bring me. I shall have them when 
my childish toys of earth drop from my 
hands, and my soul shall seek only God. 



The Human Soul. 253 



Chapter XXIIL 

THE HUMAN SOUL: ITS VALUE AND ITS 
PERILS— A SERMON, 

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the ivhole 
tvorld^ and lose his own sotd ? or what shall a man give in 
exchange for his soul ? — Mark 8 : 36, 37. 

INTRODUCTION. These words of Jesus 
were originally addressed to his disciples, 
the twelve, though in the presence of others 
whom he had called around him. The ques- 
tions were proposed for the purpose of coun- 
teracting a temper which he saw developing 
among them. In the beginning of his pub- 
lic career, he had invited these men to leave 
their former occupations, and become identi- 
fied with him. They, with good reason, be- 
lieved him to be Messiah. In common with 
their nation, they believed that when Mes- 
siah should come, he would be, not only a 
great religious teacher and reformer, but also 
a great political hero, leader, and deliverer. 
For a hundred years their country had lain 
a conquered and tributary province of the 



254 GoD's Method with Man. 

Roman Empire. Their vassal state as a nation 
galled and goaded them beyond expression. 
Their prophets had predicted kinghood of 
Messiah; and had asserted that the heathen 
should be given to him for an inheritance, 
and the uttermost parts of the earth for a 
possession: that he should break them with 
a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a 
potter's vessel. 

In the same strain had been the language, 
He shall smite the earth with the rod of his 
mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall 
he slay the wicked. And further, it had been 
predicted that the God of heaven should set 
up a kingdom, which should never be de- 
stroyed ; and which should not be left to 
other people; but should break in pieces and 
consume all other kingdoms, and stand for- 
ever. True, the prophets had also ascribed 
to him a condition of poverty, social humili- 
ation, rejection, and suffering. But this part 
of the portrait, as being less to their taste, 
had been largely ignored in their thought of 
the coming Deliverer ; while they had put a 
purely physical and worldly interpretation 
upon all the prophecies of his exaltation and 



The Human Soul. 255 

power. That men who saw unmistakable 
proofs of Messiahship in Jesus, and whose 
minds were filled with these distorted inter- 
pretations of prophetic teaching concerning 
him, should at once and joyfully accept his 
invitation to leave their humble callings and 
identify themselves with his fortunes, is not 
wonderful. That their minds were thoroughly 
preoccupied at the outset with this idea of a 
political kingdom is illustrated by the fact, 
that after having been with him three years, 
marking the humility and self-denial of his 
life, and listening to his parables, nearly every 
one of which was an effort to display the real 
nature of the kingdom of heaven, and after 
having witnessed his death on the cross, they 
inquired, on the very eve of his ascension, 
*^Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again 
the kingdom to Israel?" 

At the date of the text they had been with 
him about two years. They had learned from 
his miracles that he had unlimited resources. 
They saw that he perfectly understood human 
nature and the currents of human thought; 
and they undoubtedly supposed at first that 
he was only biding his time and waiting the 



256 GoD's Method with Man. 

opportune moment to strike for empire. But 
as time wore on they noted that he himself in 
his own fortunes continued remarkable for 
nothing so much as for his own deep poverty. 
He continued to lead them, as they must have 
felt, a wandering life, fortuneless and home- 
less, and utterly without worldly prospect. 
All this was a puzzle and a disappointment. 
Nothing w^as likely to come along the line of 
their fondly cherished Jewish anticipations. It 
does not appear that up to this time spiritual 
illumination had come to any large extent to 
the minds of these men. Two months before 
this time, in an attempt to disabuse the minds 
of the people of their false notions of his king- 
dom, and to raise them to a proper concep- 
tion of the spiritual nature thereof, he had 
given such offense that many of his disciples 
went back, and w^alked no more with him. 

Evidently the Savior saw that this tendency 
to defection from him had invaded the minds 
of even his chosen disciples, the twelve. The 
text confronts this tendency. It finds men 
looking only at time, and thrusts eternity 
under their eye. It is as if Jesus had said. 
True, you are disappointed. You dreamed 



The Human Soul, 257 

of office, and honor, and wealth, and power. 
I have led you neither to nor towards any of 
these. Suppose now, you leave me, and go 
and seek the world. Suppose yourselves suc- 
cessful in your seeking, up to your highest 
anticipation, and beyond it. Make even the 
most extravagant supposition you can. Sup- 
pose you gain the whole world ; all its riches, 
all its honors, all its power, all its pleasures; 
but at the loss of your soul. Tell me now : 
the world gained, the soul lost, what are the 
net profits of the transaction ? And tell me 
again, in case the soul be lost, by what price 
you hope to recover its fallen fortunes, or lift it 
again away from its immortal ruin and despair. 
I propose, then, as the topic of the 
morning, 

THE HUMAN SOUL- — ITS VALUE, AND ITS PERILS. 

I. The value of the Soul. To say nothing 
of the unmistakable indications of the great 
dignity of man, implied in the circumstances 
of his creation, it may suffice for our present 
purpose to note the divine estimate of him, 
as involved in God's administration over him. 
Headship and kinghood over the earth were 

17 



2s8 GoD's Method with Man. 

accorded him when God assigned him his 
position at creation. **The heaven, even the 
heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth hath 
he given to the children of men/' It is evi- 
dent that the earth, with all its store of min- 
eral, and vegetable, and animal creations, 
was erected and furnished as the palatial resi- 
dence of this one creature. ''Thou madest 
him to have dominion over the works of thy 
hands; thou hast put all things under his feet 
[completely under his authority]. Thou hast 
crowned him with glory and honor." 

God's treatment of this globe has from the 
first, had respect to man; and since he has 
become an inhabitant of it that treatment 
has always hinged upon his character. The 
interest which Heaven takes in the earth is 
simply the interest which heaven takes in this 
one creature upon the earth. All through the 
Scriptures passionate and exclamatory phrases 
abound, betraying the keenest interest on the 
part of God in man. ''Oh that thou hadst 
hearkened unto my commandments!'' "O 
Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O 
Judah, what shall I do unto thee?" ''How 
shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? how shall I 



The Human Soul. 259 

deliver thee, Israel?" ''Dearth! earth! earth! 
hear the word of the Lord." ''As I live, 
saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the 
death of the wicked. Turn ye, turn ye, for 
why will ye die?" "Come now, let us rea- 
son together, saith the Lord." "O Jerusa- 
lem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets 
and stonest them which are sent unto thee, 
how often would I have gathered thy children 
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings, and ye would not!" To 
suppose the Infinite One to be thus moved 
about a being of no value, or of little value, 
is to charge him with childish folly. 

God has shown his appreciation of man 
by his methods of communication with him. 
Before the fall this communication was evi- 
dently by personal visitation and converse — 
a method not entirely abandoned even down 
to the close of the Scripture canon. Angelic 
messengers have been incessantly employed 
betwixt earth and heaven ; while through a 
series of wonderful expedients God has made 
known his will to man in a permanent written 
revelation thereof — the Bible. This revela- 
tion is full of the yearnings of God towards 



26o GoD's Method with Man, 

man. Prayer is enjoined, the Holy Spirit is 
promised. By the one, man is invited to 
God ; by the other, God comes to man. 

Redemption tells God's estimate of man. 
The incarnation conjoins the divine with the 
human forever. Through the lips of Jesus 
Infinite Wisdom, for three years, poured a 
stream of guiding light on the path of man. 
And who shall tell how much he paid when 
he laid down his life for us? Doubtless he 
paid enough to arrest the harps of heaven 
in mid song, and hold the elder angels dumb 
with astonishment at his humiliation, and 
grief, and pain. We know he paid enough 
to darken the sun at noonday, to shake the 
earth with a thrill of horror, to rend the 
rocks, and startle the dead. So, from what- 
ever angle we view the divine conduct, in the 
making, placing, treatment, or redemption of 
man, we are compelled to admit that God be- 
holds immense dignity in him. 

But what is it in man upon which God 
looks with such amazing interest? Is it his 
body? It is, indeed, true that in regard to 
our physical organism we are fearfully and 
wonderfully made. But this is true, also, to 



The Human So ul. 261 

a large extent of many of the lower orders of 
creatures. Take from man his upright pos- 
ture and the power of speech, and you put 
him to disadvantage in comparison with sev- 
eral varieties of the brute creation. Many of 
them are longer lived ; all that are equal to 
him in size are fleeter of foot ; most are far 
keener of hearing and of sight ; while in the 
accuracy of taste and smell they all distance 
him hopelessly. No, this is not the thing of 
value, this for whose pleasure and for whose 
adornment we tax our lives, this that came 
from dust and returns to dust, this that to-day 
must call the worm my sister, and welcome 
her to-morrow as my devourer, this is not the 
thing of value. Where is it, then? If you 
would find it, look upon the immortal gem 
wdthin; that will live when the sun has burned 
out his fires, and the stars are fallen like 
blasted figs, and when final ruin shall have 
driven her plowshare through the things that 
are, and broken up all the present order of 
our universe. 

The soul demonstrates its value by its 
power to know. No animal begins existence 
with less of instinctive knowledge than the 



262 GoD's Method with Man. 

human infant. The compensating fact is the 
insatiate desire to know possessed by the 
said infant. Every child creeping about the 
nursery floor, hurrying on to seize each new 
object, handhng it, eying it, tasting it, is a 
Kttle experimenting philosopher, inquiring 
into the nature of things. When a child 
begins to study his alphabet he has already 
progressed further in knowledge than any 
other animal on this earth can ever go. Yet 
he is now at the bottom of the ladder of 
learning. As he prosecutes his studies and 
investigations he makes every new acquisi- 
tion of knowledge the pedestal on which to 
stand as he reaches for higher truths. Thus 
he proceeds till in a few years he has pos- 
sessed himself of the facts and philosophies 
of whatever department he studies. In this 
way a man of studious tastes and habits 
pushes inquiry through life. The mysteri- 
ous tablet of memory is never so full that 
the inscribing of a new fact must blur an 
old record. On the contrary, the more he 
knows the faster he can learn. Agassiz, the 
great Swiss- American philosopher, learned 
more during the last two years of his life 



The Human Soul, 263 

than he had learned in any two years that 
had preceded. Every man, therefore, dies 
with his lesson but partially learned. In its 
power to know, the human soul, even in this 
short life, demonstrates its capability of eter- 
nal progress. 

The soul demonstrates its value by its sus- 
ceptibility for joy. It is capable of gathering 
its joys from every field of earth and heaven. 
It can drink joy through the channel of every 
sense ; but its highest joys come of its social 
relations, its hopes, its achievements, its acqui- 
sition and contemplation of truth, and its com- 
munion with God. 

Its value is equally demonstrated by its sus- 
ceptibility for sorrow. Its sorrows are mainly 
derived from disappointment, bereavement, 
guilt, despair. These, or any of these, may 
weigh it down, and frequently do weigh it 
down, until its feeble companion and organ, 
the body, sinks and dies because of the load 
borne by the soul. It is also true that the 
body is frequently slain by the intemper- 
ate demands of the soul in its tireless pur- 
suit of knowledge, and that it has many 
times been found incapable of enduring the 



264 GoD's Method with Man, 

strain brought upon it by the excessive joys 
of its spiritual occupant. In fact, the soul in 
many of its intensified movements resembles 
an engine of vast capability located in a hull 
too frail to bear the strain of its propelling 
power. 

The soul is immortal. The Scriptures 
many times affirm that death does not touch 
its existence or its consciousness. Enoch was 
translated (carried over). Elijah also was car- 
ried soul and body to heaven. Moses, who 
had been dead nearly fifteen hundred years, 
was equally alive with Elijah in Christ's time. 
Jesus said that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
who had long been dead, were alive in Mo- 
ses's time, and in his time. ** Blessed are the 
dead which die in the Lord." Each human 
being that has ever lived, will live to eternity. 
This destiny involves so much that it is im- 
possible to estimate it, or to estimate the 
value of the soul in view of it. We know 
what a year is, ten years, a hundred years, 
even a thousand years can be. grasped with 
some accuracy. The thought reels heavily 
when asked to compass so vast a period as a 
million of years; and yet this period is but an 



The Human Soul. 265 

infinitesimal fraction of eternity. Eternity! 
What is it? The mind can grasp the centu- 
ries and the millenniums of time down to its 
close. But when she takes her position there, 
and gazes out over an ocean that hath no 
farther shore, she stands appalled at the vast- 
ness of her own inheritance. A French the- 
ologian has attempted to help our thought by 
a supposition. He says, Suppose a bird to 
come from the planet Jupiter once in a hun- 
dred years, and at each visit to carry home 
with him a single grain of sand from the 
earth. The time would come when, by this 
slow process, the earth would disappear. But 
this is not eternity. What, then, is the value 
of that spirit in me, in you, so marvelously 
endowed, and destined to live on and on, 
forever ? 

II. The perils of the soitl. Is it possible 
that the soul may be lost — may be ruined 
forever? If not, why should the Savior utter 
the query of the text ? Does he mean to 
frighten us with a bugbear? Is he capable 
of insincerity upon this supreme point? Does 
he suppose a case that is not supposable? Is 
there no second death — no eternal banish- 



266 GoD's Method with Man. 

ment of the soul from God and from the glory 
of his power? Bible teaching upon all these 
questions must be shown to be false, or your 
soul and my soul may be lost. 

It is not only theoretically possible that a 
human soul may fail of heaven and so be lost 
forever, but there are real sources of danger 
investing the path of each of us. Let us look 
at some of these. I name first, Our native 
proclivity to sin. It does not fall within the 
scope of this discourse to defend or to discuss 
the justice of God in permitting human beings 
to come into existence with a moral bent to- 
wards sin. The fact exists ; and we deal with 
the fact. We all have by nature a taste, a 
relish for sin. God is holy, heaven is holy, 
the command is to be holy ; and the declara- 
tion is, Without holiness no man shall see 
the Lord. But our native tastes lead us away 
from holy employments and holy joys. We 
love sinful pleasures of one kind or another. 
We know that all this must be reversed in 
our tastes and in the drift of our lives, or we 
shall fail of heaven, that is, we shall lose our 
souls. 

Again, vital godliness, such as alone can 



The Human Soul, 267 

save the soul, is tmpopular. It always has 
been, and it will likely continue to be, during 
your time and mine. Men like to be with the 
majority. It is enough, with the greater part 
of mankind, to know that a thing is unpopu- 
lar to induce them to avoid it scrupulously. 
This is the secret of the power of fashion. 
Few persons have the courage to disobey the 
behests of fashion, even in so small a matter 
as the style of a garment, however unreason- 
able or even ridiculous it may be. The im- 
pulse is to follow the multitude, not because 
they are right, but because they are many. 
Jesus said, **Wide is the gate and broad is 
the way that leadeth to destruction, and many 
there be that go in thereat; because strait is 
the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth 
unto life, and few there be that find it." It 
is true that the world is now pervaded by the 
influence of Christianity to a much larger ex- 
tent than it was when Christ uttered these 
words; and yet it is true that the picture he 
drew of the world then would answer for a 
picture of the world now. Thus it is, that 
he who would walk the path to heaven must 
consent to walk with the few, instead of the 



268 GoD's Method with Man. 

many. Have we the courage to do it? I 
wish we all had : I fear we have not. 

The power of association. Many of you 
have passed your youthful days, and some of 
you have reached mature manhood, without 
becoming Christians. Gradually you have 
gathered about you associates of characters 
like your own. You exert an influence mu- 
tually upon each other, by which you are all 
kept away from the Savior. These associa- 
tions are a formidable barrier in the way 
of your salvation to-day. There are times 
when, if these friends of yours were pious, 
you would become so. But they stand right 
in your way to keep you away from Christ, 
as you stand in theirs. I do n't accuse either 
you or them of any such evil intent ; never- 
theless, such is the effect of your mutual un- 
godliness. Here, then, is another point of 
your danger, another force that is working 
for the ruin of your soul. 

The power of habit. It is unfortunate for 
those of us who have remained irreligious up 
to this time that the power of habit has been 
enlisted against the soul's interests. The law 
of habit is, that the performance of an act 



The Human Soul. 269 

once gives to the actor increased facility for 
performing it again, and increased inclination 
thereto. Every part of our education is, when 
we look at it, the cultivation of given habits. 
Thus the boy that has read can read. The 
young man that has wielded the blacksmith's 
hammer has acquired skill for the work of 
the blacksmith. The pianist Avho to-day as- 
tonishes you with his feats upon the key- 
board has acquired all his skill by persistent 
practice. So it is in every thing: practice 
makes perfect. What you have done many 
times you have acquired a facility for doing; 
and probably you have acquired a love for 
doing it, whether the act be right or wrong. 
The man who has for a long time steadily de- 
voted himself to the duties of a religious life, 
to prayer, to the study of the Scriptures, 
to constant Church-going, to Sunday-school 
work, has become strong for work along those 
lines, and happy in it. In like manner, a life 
of ungodliness, of Sabbath-breaking, of pro- 
fanity, intemperance, prayerlessness, neglect 
of the Word and house of God, will entail 
upon a man a fearful facility and a terrible 
liking for those practices. Thus our actions 



270 GoD's Method with Man. 

perpetually react upon ourselves ; and we 
all are what the past of our own lives has 
made us. 

Unfortunately for our unconverted friends 
of the congregation, they have neglected their 
powers for godly practices and holy living, 
and have cultivated habits of indifference to 
God's claims. They have resisted the Holy 
Spirit, suppressed the convictions of con- 
science, and have given supremacy to the 
demands of the world. You complain, dear 
friends, of God for giving you being with 
hearts inclined to sin; yet you have spent 
your lives in increasing that incHnation. You 
stand to-day in terrible danger of the loss of 
your soul, as the result of cultivating your 
nature away from Christ, rather than towards 
him. *'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or 
the leopard his spots? then may ye also do 
good, that are accustomed to do evil.'* ** His 
own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, 
and he shall be holden with the cords of his 
sins.'' The truth is, my friends, you are not 
what you once were. The time was when 
your hearts were easily susceptible to relig- 
ious impressions, when you were moved by 



The Human So ul. 271 

the power of appeal, when you were at times 
in great fear lest sin should prove your sud- 
den overthrow, when the death of a fellow 
startled you with great concern, when death 
and eternity stared you in the face and 
shook you with the power of an awful con- 
viction. But those days are gone, and you 
are strangely unmoved and callous now. 
As you approach eternity, eternity seems to 
your deluded eyes to be farther and farther 
away'. That you can be so unconcerned 
about your soul you attribute to your devel- 
oped manhood. All this is but the sad ter- 
rible proof of the distance to which your 
sinful habits have borne you away from God 
and from the prospect of heaven. 

The most favorable time already past, I 
invite you, my friends, to-day to look at your 
own danger from another stand-point. The 
best time in the whole programme of your 
life for becoming Christians is, with many 
of you, already past. You can recall the 
time when you were a guileless boy in your 
father's home. The family circle was whole 
then. Every day there were prayer and praise 
in the house. The hallowing influences of a 



272 Gons Method with Man. 

Christian home were shed upon your young 
heart. You were often under deep religious 
impressions in those days ; and you Httle im- 
agined that when you should have attained 
your present age you would be religiously 
such as you are to-day. But time has flown, 
and wrought its changes. The circle about 
that hearth-stone is broken and scattered. 
Father and mother have long since gone to 
their rest. You have gone forth and mingled 
with the world and caught its spirit. The 
man is strangely unlike the boy. I believe 
that you may yet give your heart to God, 
and I have some hope that you will ; but I 
know that the difficulties in your way are a 
thousand-fold greater than they were. And 
I know, also, that you can never now be- 
come the trained, symmetrical, useful Chris- 
tian you might have been had you given your 
boyhood to Christ. 

Death, certain, soon, sudden. It ought to 
weigh with us, in considering the dangers to 
which the soul is exposed, to reflect that 
whatever is done for its salvation must be 
done in time, that is, before death, and to 
remember in this connection, how frail and 



The Human Soul. 273 

uncertain is the tenure by which we hold to 
life. '^ What is your life?" says James. ''It 
is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little 
time, and then vanisheth away/' Did the 
increasing brevity of life, as the years go by, 
impress men, the case were different; but 
there is almost a universal hallucination among 
men, especially irreligious men, by which the 
longer they live the less they expect to die. 
We ought all of us to keep constantly in mind 
at least the following points: i. Death is an 
event sure to come to me ; 2. The date of his 
coming is wholly unknown to me ; 3. Every 
day death draws nearer by one day; 4. My 
sins provoke the anger of God, and withal 
have a natural tendency to hasten death; 5. 
My death is likely to be preceded by little or 
no warning. ' ' Therefore be ye also ready : 
for in such an hour as ye think not the Son 
of man cometh.'' 

Conclusion. The loss of the soul is the 
one calamity absolutely beyond all computa- 
tion — absolutely infinite, to. the man who suf- 
fers it. All loss is saddening, under whatever 
circumstances suffered. When it is but a small 
subtraction from great wealth, it is even then 

18 



2 74 GoD's Method with Man. 

a saddening experience in its way. And the 
calamity is greater, in proportion as the loss 
embraces a larger fraction of the whole. We 
measure loss again, by the inconvenience it 
entails. There may be countervailing facts 
in connection with loss. A man may say, *'I 
have lost thus and thus: but I am confident I 
shall find it again;'' and the result of proper 
search often justifies the hope; the lost is 
found. A man may say, '*I have met with 
great loss, but I can do without it.'' So men 
from great wealth come down to poverty. 
They are obliged to change their whole mode 
of life; the mansion is sold, the servants dis- 
missed ; the furniture, horses and carriages 
vanish out of sight in a day. Yet the mer- 
chant prince of twenty years ago, living now 
in his cabin in the West, will tell you, even 
with cheerfulness, ''It was hard at first; but 
we find we can do without it." But who can 
bear the loss of the soul ? Who can adapt 
himself to the changed situation, and make it 
tolerable? It can't be done. If you lose your 
soul, you will say in agony and despair, when 
myriad years are gone, ''My punishment is 
greater than I can bear." 



The Human Soul, 275 

A man may say, '* I have suffered a heavy 
loss : but what I have lost is not burned up — 
is not in the bottom of the sea : it will still 
benefit somebody, and perhaps somebody 
that needs it more than I do.'* But if you 
lose your soul nobody can be the bet- 
ter for your loss. It is a dead loss for the 
world, for the universe. Nay, the loss of 
your soul is likely to entail immeasurable loss 
upon others. Worse still, the calamity is 
likeliest to fall upon those nearest to you, 
and dearest to your heart. If you lose your 
soul, sir, it will not be marvelous if the trust- 
ing woman at your side, who has given her 
name, her person, and her life to you, who 
confides in you, leans upon you, and loves 
you more than herself, should follow in your 
steps to the long despair. If you lose your 
soul, madam, the chances are the little group 
that calls you mother, that believes in you by 
a confidence given them of God, whose mem- 
bers instinctively imbibe your opinions and 
copy your life, will go by your path to your 
doom. Every sinning man has about him a 
poisoned atmosphere. We live among our 
fellows: every man touches society at many 



276 GoD's Method with Man. 

points. There is a virus in the touch, and 
even in the presence, of a wicked man. It 
is not possible, therefore, that a man should 
lead a rebel life, to his soul's undoing, and fail 
to find among spirits lost some one ruined 
forever by his own evil life. 

As there can come to you no consoHng 
reflection, in case you lose your soul, so 
there must come every aggravating reflection. 
Among these are likely to be the following: 
I. My loss involves the utter and hopeless 
ruin of my character. A man who, by an 
unfortunate investment, or even by robbery, 
has lost money, all his money, may yet have 
much that is valuable left. A man is not ut- 
terly ruined because his home is swept away, 
or his friends gone or dead, or his health de- 
stroyed, or even because his reputation is 
assailed and blasted. All these interests may 
have gone down under his eye, and yet the 
man have only suffered in his circumstances 
and surroundings. None of these losses have 
invaded himself Personal integrity is un- 
touched. Truth, love, purity, hope, heaven, 
and God remain. These are more than those. 
But he that has lost his soul has lost them all. 



The Human Soul. 277 

2. My calamity was wholly unnecessary. 
No remorseless decree of God appointed hell 
my fate. God made me free. He gave me 
length of days. He multiplied my daily 
blessings of food and raiment. He placed 
me in a Christian land, with Sabbaths, Bibles, 
Churches, sermons. Others about me with 
no better opportunities left my path, and 
walked with Jesus to heaven. I had instruc- 
tion, warning, invitation, entreaty, with all 
the wealth of gracious promises from God to 
lure my wayward feet away from the paths 
of sin. I am lost, not because I must be, but 
because I would be. I might have been saved. 

" Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
The saddest are these, It might have been." 

Many years ago a man appointed to the 
sole care of a switch, at a very dangerous 
point, on the Erie Road, committed the blun- 
der of turning the switch the wrong way. A 
passenger train was thrown off a high embank- 
ment, producing a fearful wreck, with great 
loss of property and life. The sight of what 
he had done drove the switch-man mad. He 
fled at once, and for more than a year no one 
there knew whether he was living or dead. At 



> 



278 GoD's Method with Man, 

length he was identified in an Eastern city. 
His habit was to walk the streets in silence; 
only as he raised his eyes at intervals, and 
uttered the fraction of a sentence : * * Oh, if I 

only had /' Thus the sentence, though 

often begun, was never finished. Poor man! 
Who can contemplate his condition without 
reflecting how much of woe may come of one 
wrong act. What must it be, my unconverted 
friend, to spend eternity thinking of probation 
past, of heaven lost, and repeating still, *'0h, 
if I only had V' 



A Fainting Word. 279 



A Parting Word. 

A FEW parting words and the reader's 
attention shall be relieved. We have 
attempted, as you see, to note *' God's 
Method with Man" through all the phases of 
his history. In doing this, it has not been 
possible to avoid the presentation of things 
actual and possible in man's relations with 
God, and of the grand designs of God with 
respect to man as one of the races of his 
creatures. It will be noted that we have a 
stalwart faith in the old-time orthodoxy. 
We believe, indeed, that all truth is based in 
philosophy — that there is a cause and a 
reason for each point in the divine policy, 
and for each act of the divine administration ; 
but we believe also that the truths of God's 
great book are too vast in their scope and too 
deep in their foundations to be logically traced 
or intellectually apprehended and grasped by 
man. We must accept them as we find them 



28o Gons Method with Man, 

stated; just as thousands of men accept and 
employ the locomotive force of steam, who 
do not and can not understand the machine 
that transports them over the seas, or whirls 
them across the continents. 

I hold that an unquestioning faith in the 
Bible is not only not forbidden by good sense 
but is demanded by the highest philosophy; 
and that the man is wisest, strongest, calmest, 
safest, and holiest who embraces its truths by 
a reliant faith firmer, than that of other men. 

God commonly has but one way for com- 
passing a given end. He makes Summer in 
one way. He makes corn in one way. He 
wields all worlds in one way, and he brings 
man from vileness to purity in one way — 
only one, '* There is none other name under 
heaven, given among men, whereby we must 
be saved.'* 

Among the convictions we entertain and 
would implant in the minds of our readers are : 

I. That God regards sin in man as being 
stronger than any other force, except holiness 
in himself, and as having a virus for which he 
himself has no antidote, except the blood of 
Christ. 



A Fainting Word. 281 

2. That he regards man as wholly lost by 
sin. 

3. That he grieves over sinning man as 
over something of priceless value lost. 

4. That the divine policy toward man in 
every dispensation is the same ; namely, to 
purify, ennoble, magnify, exalt, and finally 
glorify him. 

5. That God*s one expedient for exalting 
man's character is that of uniting the divine 
with the human. 

May the writer meet the reader where the 
ends of *' God's Method with Man'' find 
their consummation. 



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